to a certain
extent, of the very crime which has led to the exhibition. It is the
morbid appetite, which sometimes grows to madness--the creature of
unregulated passions, ill-judged direction, and sometimes, even of the
laws and usages of society itself, which is so much interested in the
promotion of characteristics the very reverse. It may be that I have
more of this perilous stuff about me than the generality of mankind; but
I am satisfied there are few of them, taught as I have been, and the
prey of like influences, whose temper had been very different from mine.
The early and operating circumstances under which I grew up, all tended
to the rank growth and encouragement of the more violent and vexing
passions. I was the victim of a tyranny, which, in the end, made me too
a tyrant. To feel, myself, and exercise the temper thus taught me, I had
to acquire power in order to secure victims; and all my aims in life,
all my desires, tended to this one pursuit. Indifferent to me, alike,
the spider who could sting, or the harmless butterfly whose only
offensiveness is in the folly of his wearing a glitter which he can not
take care of. I was a merciless enemy, giving no quarter; and with an
Ishmaelitish spirit, lifting my hand against all the tribes that were
buzzing around me."

"I believe you have spoken the truth, Guy, so far as your particular
qualities of temper are concerned; for, had I undertaken to have spoken
for you in relation to this subject, I should probably have said, though
not to the same degree, the same thing; but the wonder with me is, how,
with such feelings, you should have so long remained in quiet, and in
some respects, perfectly harmless."

"There is as little mystery in the one as in the other. You may judge
that my sphere of action--speaking of _action_ in a literal sense--was
rather circumscribed at Gwinnett courthouse: but, the fact is, I was
then but acquiring my education. I was, for the first time, studying
rogues, and the study of rogues is not unaptly fitted to make one take
up the business. _I_, at least, found it to have that effect. But, even
at Gwinnett courthouse, learning as I did, and what I did, there was one
passion, or perhaps a modified form of the ruling passion, which might
have swallowed up all the rest had time been allowed it. I was young,
and not free from vanity; particularly as, for the first time, my ears
had been won with praise and gentle flatteries. The possession of