springs of a fable whereby men have been guided thus far out of the wood.

Victor would have said truly that he loved Truth; that he paid every debt
with a scrupulous exactitude: money, of course; and prompt apologies for
a short brush of his temper. Nay, he had such a conscience for the
smallest eruptions of a transient irritability, that the wish to say a
friendly mending word to the Punctilio donkey of London Bridge, softened
his retrospective view of the fall there, more than once. Although this
man was a presentation to mankind of the force in Nature which drives to
unresting speed, which is the vitality of the heart seen at its beating
after a plucking of it from the body, he knew himself for the reverse of
lawless; he inclined altogether to good citizenship. So social a man
could not otherwise incline. But when it came to the examination of
accounts between Mrs. Burman and himself, spasms of physical revulsion,
loathings, his excessive human nature, put her out of Court. To men,
it was impossible for him to speak the torments of those days of the
monstrous alliance. The heavens were cognizant. He pleaded his case
in their accustomed hearing:--a youngster tempted by wealth, attracted,
besought, snared, revolted, etc. And Mrs. Burman, when roused to
jealousy, had shown it by teazing him for a confession of his admiration
of splendid points in the beautiful Nataly, the priceless fair woman
living under their roof, a contrast of very life, with the corpse and
shroud; and she seen by him daily, singing with him, her breath about
him, her voice incessantly upon every chord of his being!

He pleaded successfully. But the silence following the verdict was
heavy; the silence contained an unheard thunder. It was the sound, as
when out of Court the public is dissatisfied with a verdict. Are we
expected to commit a social outrage in exposing our whole case to the
public?--Imagine it for a moment as done. Men are ours at a word--or at