every three years, on the
average, as Sir James Mackintosh tells us.

I do not know in what shape the practical question may present itself to
you; but I will tell you my rule in life, and I think you will find it
a good one. Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. They are
in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds,
is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered with the
greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid collision with them, so far
as you honorably can; keep your temper, if you can,--for one angry
man is as good as another; restrain them from violence, promptly,
completely, and with the least possible injury, just as in the case of
maniacs,--and when you have got rid of them, or got them tied hand and
foot so that they can do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them
charitably, remembering that nine tenths of their' perversity comes from
outside influences, drunken ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company,
from which you have happily been preserved, and for some of which you,
as a member of society, may be fractionally responsible. I think also
that there are special influences which work in the brood lake ferments,
and I have a suspicion that some of those curious old stories I cited
may have more recent parallels. Have you ever met with any cases which
admitted of a solution like that which I have mentioned?

Yours very truly, _____________ _____________

Bernard Langdon to Philip Staples.
MY DEAR PHILIP,--

I have been for some months established in this place, turning the
main crank of the machinery for the manufactory of accomplishments
superintended by, or rather worked to the profit of, a certain Mr. Silas
Peckham. He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood in his
body, lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick-jointed
and thin-muscled,--you know those unwholesome, weak-eyed, half-fed
creatures, that look not fit to be round among live folks, and yet not
quite dead enough to bury. If you ever hear of my being in court to
answer to a charge of assault and battery, you may guess that I have
been giving him a thrashing to settle off old scores; for he is a
tyrant, and has come pretty near killing his principal lady-assistant
with overworking her and keeping her out of all decent privileges.

Helen Darley is this lady's name,--twenty two or three years old,
I should think,--a very sweet, pale woman,--daughter of the u