eeling in a
suppliant attitude, around, to denote their loyalty and unwillingness to
offend. But in the back-ground, tents and lines of spears are
discovered, as a hint of their ability and resolution to defend
themselves.' ... This kind of allegiance no true heart will ever give.

I take it for granted that you have a heart--not merely anatomically
speaking, an organ to circulate the blood, but a something that prompts
you to love, to self-sacrifice, to scorn of meanness, and, it may be, to
good, honest hatred. All metals can be separated from their ores; but
meanness is inseparable from some natures, so it is impossible to hate
the sin without hating the sinner; we can't, indeed, conceive of it in
the abstract. I don't mean hate in a malignant sense--here I may as well
express my scorn of that sly hatred that is too cowardly to knock a man
down, but quietly trips him up.

It is well enough for those who think that 'life is a jest,' (and a
bitter, sarcastic one it must be to them,) to mock at all nobler
feelings and sentiments of the heart. None do they more contemn than
friendship. I would not 'sit in the seat' of these 'scornful,' however
they may have found false friends. Yet every man capable of a genuine
friendship himself, will in this world find at least one true friend.
Oxygen, which comprises one fifth of the atmosphere, is said to be
highly magnetic; and any ordinary, healthy soul can extract magnetism
enough from the very air he breathes to draw at least one other soul.
Some people have an amazing power of absorption and retention of this
magnetism. You feel irresistibly drawn toward them--and it is all right,
for they are noble, true souls. There is a great difference between
their attractive force and that kind of 'power of charming' innocence
that villainy often has--just as I once saw a cat charm a bird, which
circled nearer and nearer till it almost brushed the cat's whiskers--and
had he not been chased away, he would have that day daintily
lunched--and there would have been one songster less to join in that
evening's vespers.

False----s there are--I will not call them false _friends_--this noun
should never follow that adjective. To what shall I liken them--to the
young gorilla, that even while its master is feeding it, looks
trustingly in his face and thrusts forth its paw to tear him? Who blames
the gorilla? Torn from its dam, caged or chained, it owes its captor a
grudge. To the serpent? The sto