was the case with Oliphant. Obviously a man could live a more beneficial
life with a marriage of mutual affection, whilst a poor young woman
would, if she married otherwise, be sure to be a sufferer. Perhaps this
fragment was historical. It would have made the Oliphants' disaster
easier.

A word, a vision, and the mischief is done. Perhaps poor Captain
Lestrange was forced into his unhappy marriage by a similar trick.

The love of power and of bullying is so great, perhaps especially with
British and Germans, that this tyranny is not wonderful; were there not
an efficient police the Mohawks would soon revive; the infamous cruelty
of some brutes is only known to a few doctors. Envy, malice, hatred, and
all uncharitableness are shown in these attacks upon people, whose lives
were useful and whose characters were high. Possibly the hope of profit
may be sometimes present;--when this is past and the scoundrels have had
their triumph, their persecution is continued, unprofitable though it be;
partly to render pursuit more difficult, partly maybe for practice,
partly because they have acquired a horrible habit which they cannot get
rid of. Du Potet's feeling of pride becomes in the bosom of a blackguard
wholly evil. Much interest has been given to Home's feats: to his
floating outside his window and other extraordinary performances. His
first feat, be it remembered, was to make a rapping stool leap up when it
had a Bible on it, and leap all the harder. Was not this mere tricking
action on the observer's eye and ear? This was closely paralleled by the
rascals about B----, who made a "work-table, a box on long slender legs,"
emit a loud bang. Home might have done this alone to his aunt, but it
possibly was done by a combination of people at B----.

The fact that Home, at least on one occasion, could not do anything when