lly more effect on opinion
than fifty facts; a result that he attributed to the circumstance
of monikins having a besetting predisposition to save themselves the
trouble of thinking.

I was, in particular, struck with the effect of the occultation of
Principle on motives. I had often remarked that it was by no means safe
to depend on one's own motives, for two sufficient reasons; first,
that we did not always know what our own motives were; and secondly,
admitting that we did, it was quite unreasonable to suppose that our
friends would believe them what we thought them to be ourselves. In
the present instance, every monikin seemed perfectly aware of the
difficulty; and, instead of waiting for his acquaintances to attribute
some moral enormity as his governing reason, he prudently adopted a
moderately selfish inducement for his acts, which he proclaimed with
a simplicity and frankness that generally obtained credit. Indeed, the
fact once conceded that the motive was not offensively disinterested and
just, no one was indisposed to listen to the projects of his friend,
who usually rose in estimation, as he was found to be ingenious,
calculating, and shrewd. The effect of all this was to render society
singularly sincere and plain-spoken; and one unaccustomed to so much
ingenuousness, or who was ignorant of the cause, might, plausibly
enough, suppose, at times, that accident had thrown him into an
extraordinary association with so many ARTISTES, who, as it is commonly
expressed, lived by their wits. I will avow that, had it been the
fashion to wear pockets at Leaplow, I should often have been concerned
for their contents; for sentiments so purely unsophisticated, were
so openly advanced under the influence of the shadow, that one was
inevitably led, oftener than was pleasant, to think of the relations
between meum and tuum, as well as of the unexpected causes by which they
were sometimes disturbed.

A vacancy occurred, the second day of the eclipse, among the
representatives of Bivouac, and the candidate of the Horizontals would
certainly have been chosen to fill it, but for a contretemps connected
with this affair of motives. The individual in question had lately
performed that which, in most other countries, and under other
circumstances, would have passed for an act of creditable national
feeling; but which, quite as a matter of course, was eagerly presented
to the electors, by his opponents, as a proof of his utter un