on haunting my mind written on my
countenance? I trust not. What if one man after another were to come up
to me and say, "How dare you, sir, suspect me in your mind of stealing
your fruit? Go be hanged, you and your jargonels!" You rascal thief! it
is not merely three-halfp'orth of sooty fruit you rob me of, it is my
peace of mind--my artless innocence and trust in my fellow-creatures,
my childlike belief that everything they say is true. How can I hold out
the hand of friendship in this condition, when my first impression is,
"My good sir, I strongly suspect that you were up my pear-tree
last night?" It is a dreadful state of mind. The core is black;
the death-stricken fruit drops on the bough, and a great worm is
within--fattening, and feasting, and wriggling! WHO stole the pears?
I say. Is it you, brother? Is it you, madam? Come! are you ready to
answer--respondere parati et cantare pares? (O shame! shame!)

Will the villains ever be discovered and punished who stole my fruit?
Some unlucky rascals who rob orchards are caught up the tree at once.
Some rob through life with impunity. If I, for my part, were to try
and get up the smallest tree, on the darkest night, in the most remote
orchard, I wager any money I should be found out--be caught by the leg
in a man-trap, or have Towler fastening on me. I always am found out;
have been; shall be. It's my luck. Other men will carry off bushels
of fruit, and get away undetected, unsuspected; whereas I know woe and
punishment would fall upon me were I to lay my hand on the smallest
pippin. So be it. A man who has this precious self-knowledge will surely
keep his hands from picking and stealing, and his feet upon the paths of
virtue.

I will assume, my benevolent friend and present reader, that you
yourself are virtuous, not from a fear of punishment, but from a sheer
love of good: but us you and I walk through life, consider what hundreds
of thousands of rascals we must have met, who have not been found out at
all. In high places and low, in Clubs and on 'Change, at church or
the balls and routs of the nobility and gentry, how dreadful it is for
benevolent beings like you and me to have to think these undiscovered
though not unsuspected scoundrels are swarming! What is the difference
between you and a galley-slave? Is yonder poor wretch at the hulks not a
man and a brother too? Have you ever forged, my dear sir? Have you ever
cheated your neighbor? Have you ever ridden to Ho