ortunity of explaining
to you, with the utmost sincerity and confidence, what may have appeared
to you like--yes--really like a breaking of my word. It is true I did
promise you my vote: but then, you know, voting being a very serious
matter, I thought it necessary to read my oath which I should be called
upon to take; and I found, my good friend, to my astonishment, that I was
bound by it not to vote from '_favour and affection_.' Yes, those are the
words. Now, it unfortunately--only unfortunately in this instance, mind
me--happens, that there is not a man in the world so much in my
affection and my favour as yourself; to vote, therefore, as you had
wished me to vote, would, after reading the oath, have been downright
perjury; for I certainly should have voted 'through favour and
affection.' That would have been a fearful weight upon my conscience."
Here was a pretty scoundrel, Eusebius. I should be sorry to have you
encounter him in a crowd, and trust his sides to your elbows, lest you
should be taken with one of those sudden fits of juvenility that are not
quite in accordance with the sedateness of your years. You will not be
inclined to agree with an apologist I met the other day, who simply said
that Satan had thrown the temptation in his way. There is no occasion
for such superfluous labour, nor does the arch-fiend throw any of his
labour away. Your Peter Pures may be very well left to themselves, and
are left to themselves; their own inventions are quite sufficient for
all their trading purposes; there is no need to put temptations in their
way--they will seek them of themselves.

You will certainly lay me under the censure that Montaigne throws upon
Guicciardini. Let me then make amends, and ascribe one action to a
generous, a conscientious motive. There cannot be found a better example
than I have met with in reading some memoirs of the great and good
Colston, the founder of those excellent charities in London, Bristol,
and elsewhere. I find this passage in his life. It happened that one of
his most richly-laden vessels was so long missing, and the violent
storms having given every reason to suppose she had perished, that
Colston gave her up for lost. Upon this occasion, it is said, he did not
lament his unhappiness as many are apt to do, and perpetually count up
the serious amount of his losses; but, with dutiful submission, fell
upon his knees, and with thankfulness for what Providence had been
pleased to lea