leg, to contend that the commission of murder does not necessarily impair
the agreeableness of the assassin's conversation; and to insist that at
bottom God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational. He will,
in fine, sin on sufficient provocation, and repent within the moment,
quite sincerely, and be not unconscionably surprised when he repeats the
progression: and he will consider the world with a smile of toleration, and
his own doings with a smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile
that is not distrustful.

This particular attitude toward life may have its merits, but it is not
conducive to meticulous morality; therefore, in advance, I warn you that my
_Dramatis Personae_ will in their display of the cardinal virtues evince a
certain parsimony. Theirs were, in effect, not virtuous days. And the great
man who knew these times _au fond_, and loved them, and wrote of them as no
other man may ever hope to do, has said of these same times, with perfect
truth:

"Fiddles sing all through them; wax-lights, fine dresses, fine jokes,
fine plate, fine equipages, glitter and sparkle: never was there such
a brilliant, jigging, smirking Vanity Fair. But wandering through that
city of the dead, that dreadfully selfish time, through those godless
intrigues and feasts, through those crowds, pushing, and eager, and
struggling,--rouged, and lying, and fawning,--I have wanted some one to be
friends with. I have said, _Show me some good person about that Court; find
me, among those selfish courtiers, those dissolute gay people, some one
being that I can love and regard._" And Thackeray confesses that, for all
his research, he could not find anybody living irreproachably, at this
especial period....

Where a giant fails one may in reason hesitate to essay. I present, then,