the person but to all mankind? I am young, I grant, and know but little
of the barbarity which it is pretended is universal. I cannot think the
accusation true. Or, if it be, I am convinced it must be the result of
some strange perversion of what may be called the natural propensities
of man. I own I have seen children wrangle for and endeavour to
purloin, or seize by force, each others apples and cherries; and this
may be a beginning to future rapacity. But I know the obvious course of
nature would be to correct, instead of to confirm, such mistakes. I
know too that there are individual instances of cruelty, and
insensibility. But these surely are the exceptions, and not the rule.

I visited a man whose vices, that is whose errors and passions were so
violent as to be dangerous to society, and still more dangerous to
himself. Was it not my duty? I thought myself certain of convincing him
of his folly, and of bringing back a lost individual to the paths of
utility and good sense. What should I have been, had I neglected such
an opportunity? I have really no patience to think that a thing, which
it would have been a crime to have left undone, should possibly be
supposed a work of supererogation!

I saw an industrious rising family on the brink of ruin, and in the
agonies of despair, which were the consequences of an act of virtue;
and I was not selfish enough to prefer my own whims, which I might
choose to call pleasures, to the preservation of this worthy, this
really excellent little family. And for this I am to be adored! For no
word is strong enough to express the fooleries that have been acted to
me. They were well meant? True. They were the ebullitions of virtue? I
do not deny it. But either they are an unjust satire upon the world in
general, or it is a vile world. I half suspect, indeed, it is not quite
what it ought to be.