ber of moral scruples,
such as could only be adequately resolved by the editor of the
_Spectator_, always occurred spontaneously to my mind and conscience
just in time to ensure that wicked Eliza a fresh spell of life in which
to continue unabashed her atrocious behaviour.

Has man, I asked myself at such moments, mere human man, any right to
set himself up in the place of earthly providence, as so much better
and more moral than insentient nature? If the spider cruelly devours
living flies and intelligent or highly sensitive bees, we must at least
remember that she has no choice in the matter, and that, as the poet
justly remarks, ''tis her nature to.' But then, on the other hand, it
might be plausibly argued that 'tis our nature equally to kill the
creature that we see so hatefully fulfilling the law of its own cruel
being. And yet again it might be pleaded by any able counsel who
undertook the defence of Lucy or Eliza on her trial for her life
against her human accusers, that she was impelled to all these evil
deeds by maternal affection, one of the noblest and most unselfish of
animal instincts. Moreover, if the spider didn't prey, it would
obviously die; and it seems rather hard on any creature to condemn it
to death for no better reason than because it happens to have been born
a member of its own kind, and not of any other and less morally
objectionable species. Jedburgh justice oL that sort rather savours of
the method pursued by the famous countryman who was found cutting a
harmless amphibian into a hundred pieces with his murderous spade, and
saying spitefully as he did so, at every particularly savage cut: 'I'll
larn ye to be a twoad, I will; I'll larn ye to be a twoad!'

Nevertheless, in spite of all this my vaunted philosophy, I will
frankly confess that more than once Eliza and Lucy sorely tried my
patience, and that I was often a good deal better than half-minded in
my soul to rush out in a feverish fit of moral indignation and put an
end to their ghastly career of crime without waiting to hear what they
had to say in their own favour, showing cause why sentence of death
should not be executed upon them. And I would have done it, I believe,
had it not been for that peculiar arrangement of the drawing-room
windows, which made it impossible to get at the culprits direct,
without going out into the garden and round the house; which, of
course, is a severe strain in wet or windy weather to put upon
anybody'