lands, Frank Hazeldean betrothed, and possibly
disinherited; and Dick Avenel, in the background, opening against the
hated Lansmere interest that same seat in parliament which had first
welcomed into public life Randal's ruined patron.

"But some must laugh, and some must weep;
Thus runs the world away!"

BOOK ELEVENTH.

INITIAL CHAPTER.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HATE AS AN AGENT IN CIVILIZED LIFE.

It is not an uncommon crotchet amongst benevolent men to maintain that
wickedness is necessarily a sort of insanity, and that nobody would make
a violent start out of the straight path unless stung to such disorder
by a bee in his bonnet. Certainly when some very clever, well-educated
person like our friend, Randal Leslie, acts upon the fallacious
principle that "roguery is the best policy," it is curious to see how
many points he has in common with the insane: what over-cunning, what
irritable restlessness, what suspicious belief that the rest of the
world are in a conspiracy against him, which it requires all his wit
to baffle and turn to his own proper aggrandizement and profit. Perhaps
some of my readers may have thought that I have represented Randal as
unnaturally far-fetched in his schemes, too wire-drawn and subtle in
his speculations; yet that is commonly the case with very refining
intellects, when they choose to play the knave; it helps to disguise
from themselves the ugliness of their ambition, just as a philosopher
delights in the ingenuity of some metaphysical process, which ends
in what plain men call "atheism," who would be infinitely shocked and
offended if he were called an atheist.

Having premised thus much on behalf of the "Natural" in Randal Leslie's
character, I must here fly off to say a word or two on the agency in
human life exercised by a passion rarely seen without a mask in our
debonair and civilized age,--I mean Hate.

In the good old days of our forefathers, when plain speaking and hard
blows were in fashion, when a man had his heart at the tip of his
tongue, and four feet of sharp iron dangling at his side, Hate played
an honest, open part in the theatre of the world. In fact, when we read
History, Hate seems to have "starred it" on the stage. But now, where
is Hate? Who ever sees its face? Is it that smiling, good-tempered
creature, that presses you by the hand so cordially, or that dignified
figure of state that calls you its "Right Honourable friend"? Is it th