he standard of the latter a mild
abridgment of the arch-fiend. He, nevertheless, holds them in the highest
veneration, and is prepared to accept their revelations concerning
himself, and indeed all other subjects of mundane philosophy, as oracular.
He even holds familiar converse with them--when an interview can be
contrived without endangering those barriers of etiquette which preserve
to either a fair start in a foot-race--and calculates with tolerable
accuracy that the churchyard spawn who affect this characterization are
counterfeits. On the latter subject he has doubts, however, which on
occasion might be turned to his disadvantage.

Whether it is affectation with him, or a kind of prescience with which he
is gifted in view of his moral structure, we do not pretend to decide; but
he boasts a knowledge of the private affairs of his spook kinsfolk (they
are invariably uncles, aunts, grand relations, etc.) which would be
considered sacrilege in another being. If he deems you worthy of such
confidence, he will describe to you the ghostly raiment they wear,
diversified in other particulars, but always sombre-hued, and in no
recorded instance cut bias. He is rarely at fault in assigning the period
of antiquity from which they date, and if opportunity served, could lead
you to the exact spot where their archaeological remains "smell sweet." He
can give, with that emphasis of detail which grows out of perfect
familiarity with his subject, their occupations--ranging from
yacht-building, horse-culture, and other of the fine arts, all the way
down to book-making. And finally, if pressed for information, can state
some astonishing facts with regard to their phrenological development.
With him these essences are always evil spirits, and though he views them
in the constant performance of deeds that would quickly promote them to
the hangman's offices if enterprised in the flesh, yet his philosophy so
confounds the means and extremes relating to the transaction, that he can
see no way out of the difficulty but to respect the latter as proceeding
from the former.

Though they cherish a causeless animosity against himself and his kind,
and war on the latter with a chronic wastefulness of the vital spark,
which could only proceed from a want of appreciation of this blessing
inseparable from their standpoint, yet he cannot go behind his apotheosis
to find fault with the system of government upon which it proceeds. In
fact, though he