y with apathy from the
sanctified loveliness of a Madonna by Raffaelle.

But to return to the individual bias, which is continually inclining
to, or repelling, What is more common, especially with women, than
a high admiration of a plain person, if connected with wit, or a
pleasing address? Can we have a stronger case in point than that of
the celebrated Wilkes, one of the ugliest, yet one of the most
admired men of his time? Even his own sex, blinded no doubt by their
sympathetic bias, could see no fault in him, either in mind or
person; for, when it was objected to the latter, that "he squinted
confoundedly," the reply was, "No, Sir, not more than a gentleman
ought to squint."

Of the tendency to particular pursuits,--to art, science, or any
particular course of life,--we do not speak; the bias we allude to is
in the more personal disposition of the man,--in that which gives a
tone to his internal character; nor is it material of what
proportions compounded, of the affections, or the intellect, or the
senses,--whether of some only, or the whole; that these form the
ground of every man's bias is no less certain, than the fact that
there is scarcely any secret which men are in the habit of guarding
with such sedulous care. Nay, it would seem as if every one were
impelled to it by some superstitious instinct, that every one might
have it to say to himself, There is one thing in me which is all _my
own_. Be this as it may, there are few things more hazardous than
to pronounce with confidence on any man's bias. Indeed, most men would
be puzzled to name it to themselves; but its existence in them is
not the less a fact, because the form assumed may be so mixed and
complicated as to be utterly undefinable. It is enough, however, that
every one feels, and is more or less led by it, whether definite or
not.

This being the case, how is it possible that it should not in some
degree affect our feelings towards every one we meet,--that it should
not leave some speck of leaven on each impression, which shall
impregnate it with something that we admire and love, or else with
that which we hate and despise?

And what is the most beautiful or the most ungainly form before a
sorcerer like this, who can endow a fair simpleton with the rarest
intellect, or transform, by a glance, the intellectual, noble-hearted
dwarf to an angel of light? These, of course, are extreme cases. But
if true in these, as we have reason to believe, how