taking to the road."

"It is very odd," answered Paul, "that I should have any scruples left
after your lectures on the subject; but I own to you frankly that,
somehow or other, I have doubts whether thieving be really the honestest
profession I could follow."

"Listen to me, Paul," answered Augustus; and his reply is not unworthy of
notice. "All crime and all excellence depend upon a good choice of
words. I see you look puzzled; I will explain. If you take money from
the public, and say you have robbed, you have indubitably committed a
great crime; but if you do the same, and say you have been relieving the
necessities of the poor, you have done an excellent action. If, in
afterwards dividing this money with your companions, you say you have
been sharing booty, you have committed an offence against the laws of
your country; but if you observe that you have been sharing with your
friends the gains of your industry, you have been performing one of the
noblest actions of humanity. To knock a man on the head is neither
virtuous nor guilty, but it depends upon the language applied to the
action to make it murder or glory. Why not say, then, that you have
testified the courage of a hero, rather than the atrocity of a ruffian?
This is perfectly clear, is it not?"

[We observe in a paragraph from an American paper, copied without
comment into the "Morning Chronicle," a singular proof of the truth
of Tomlinson's philosophy! "Mr. Rowland Stephenson," so runs the
extract, "the celebrated English banker, has just purchased a
considerable tract of land," etc. Most philosophical of
paragraphists! "Celebrated English banker!"--that sentence is a
better illustration of verbal fallacies than all Ben tham's