disturbing arrangement. And this is all that ever was required for
a character of the greatest uniformity and steadiness in connection.
How men can proceed without any connection at all is to me utterly
incomprehensible. Of what sort of materials must that man be made,
how must he be tempered and put together, who can sit whole years in
Parliament, with five hundred and fifty of his fellow-citizens,
amidst the storm of such tempestuous passions, in the sharp conflict
of so many wits, and tempers, and characters, in the agitation of
such mighty questions, in the discussion of such vast and ponderous
interests, without seeing any one sort of men, whose character,
conduct, or disposition would lead him to associate himself with
them, to aid and be aided, in any one system of public utility?

I remember an old scholastic aphorism, which says that "the man who
lives wholly detached from others must be either an angel or a
devil." When I see in any of these detached gentlemen of our times
the angelic purity, power, and beneficence, I shall admit them to be
angels. In the meantime, we are born only to be men. We shall do
enough if we form ourselves to be good ones. It is therefore our
business carefully to cultivate in our minds, to rear to the most
perfect vigour and maturity, every sort of generous and honest
feeling that belongs to our nature. To bring the, dispositions that
are lovely in private life into the service and conduct of the
commonwealth; so to be patriots, as not to forget we are gentlemen.
To cultivate friendships, and to incur enmities. To have both
strong, but both selected: in the one, to be placable; in the
other, immovable. To model our principles to our duties and our
situation. To be fully persuaded that all virtue which is
impracticable is spurious, and rather to run the risk of falling
into faults in a course which leads us to act with effect and energy