Nature, and, by
my honor, I will have amends! Why did I not crawl the first from my
mother's womb? why not the only one? why has she heaped on me this
burden of deformity? on me especially? Just as if she had spawned me
from her refuse.* Why to me in particular this snub of the Laplander?
these negro lips? these Hottentot eyes? On my word, the lady seems to
have collected from all the race of mankind whatever was loathsome into
a heap, and kneaded the mass into my particular person. Death and
destruction! who empowered her to deny to me what she accorded to him?
Could a man pay his court to her before he was born? or offend her
before he existed? Why went she to work in such a partial spirit?

No! no! I do her injustice--she bestowed inventive faculty, and set us
naked and helpless on the shore of this great ocean, the world--let
those swim who can--the heavy** may sink. To me she gave naught else,
and how to make the best use of my endowment is my present business.
Men's natural rights are equal; claim is met by claim, effort by effort,
and force by force--right is with the strongest--the limits of our power
constitute our laws.

It is true there are certain organized conventions, which men have
devised to keep up what is called the social compact. Honor! truly a
very convenient coin, which those who know how to pass it may lay out
with great advantage.*** Conscience! oh yes, a useful scarecrow to
frighten sparrows away from cherry-trees; it is something like a fairly
written bill of exchange with which your bankrupt merchant staves off
the evil day.

* See Richard III., Act I, Sc. 1, line 17.

**Heavy is used in a double meaning; the German word is plump,
which Means lumpish clumsy awkward.

***So Falstaff, Hen. IV., Pt. I., Act V., Sc. 1, "Honor is a mere
scutcheon."

Well! these are all most admirable institutions for keeping fools in
awe, and holding the mob underfoot, that the cunning may live the more
at their ease. Rare institutions, doubtless. They are something like
the fences my boors plant so closely to keep out the hares--yes
I' faith, not a hare can trespass on the enclosure, but my lord claps
spurs to his hunter, and away he gallops over the teeming harvest!

Poor hare! thou playest but a sorry part in this world's drama, but your
worshipful lords must needs have hares!

*[This may help to illustrate a passage in Shakespeare which
puzzles the commentators--"Cupid is a good h