"
This is a letter honourable to the writer, where the meaning
rather than the words is eloquent. Such was the account he
gave of himself to his contemporaries; such thoughts he chose
to utter, and in such language: giving himself out for a
grave and patriotic public servant. We turn to the same date
in the Diary by which he is known, after two centuries, to
his descendants. The entry begins in the same key with the
letter, blaming the "madness of the House of Commons" and
"the base proceedings, just the epitome of all our public
proceedings in this age, of the House of Lords;" and then,
without the least transition, this is how our diarist
proceeds: "To the Strand, to my bookseller's, and there
bought an idle, rogueish French book, L'ESCHOLLE DES FILLES,
which I have bought in plain binding, avoiding the buying of
it better bound, because I resolve, as soon as I have read
it, to burn it, that it may not stand in the list of books,
nor among them, to disgrace them, if it should be found."
Even in our day, when responsibility is so much more clearly
apprehended, the man who wrote the letter would be notable;
but what about the man, I do not say who bought a roguish
book, but who was ashamed of doing so, yet did it, and
recorded both the doing and the shame in the pages of his
daily journal?
We all, whether we write or speak, must somewhat drape
ourselves when we address our fellows; at a given moment we
apprehend our character and acts by some particular side; we
are merry with one, grave with another, as befits the nature
and demands of the relation.
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