83. This unfortunate youth, whose name was SMITH, and who was a
shoemaker, was in love with a young woman, who, in spite of all his
importunities and his proofs of ardent passion, refused to marry him,
and even discovered her liking for another; and he, unable to support
life, accompanied by the thought of her being in possession of any body
but himself, put an end to his life by the means of a rope. If, in any
case, we are to _presume_ the existence of insanity; if, in any case, we
are led to believe the thing _without positive proof_; if, in any case,
there can be an apology in human nature itself, for such an act; _this
was that case_. We all know (as I observed at the time); that is to say,
all of us who cannot wait to calculate upon the gains and losses of the
affair; all of us, except those who are endowed with this provident
frigidity, know well what youthful love is; and what its torments are,
when accompanied by even the smallest portion of jealousy. Every man,
and especially every Englishman (for here we seldom love or hate by
halves), will recollect how many mad pranks he has played; how many wild
and ridiculous things he has said and done between the age of sixteen
and that of twenty-two; how many times a kind glance has scattered all
his reasoning and resolutions to the winds; how many times a cool look
has plunged him into the deepest misery! Poor SMITH, who was at this age
of love and madness, might, surely, be presumed to have done the deed in
a moment of '_temporary mental derangement_.' He was an object of
compassion in every humane breast: he had parents and brethren and
kindred and friends to lament his death, and to feel shame at the
disgrace inflicted on his lifeless body: yet, HE was pronounced to be a
_felo de se_, or _self-murderer_, and his body was put into a hole by
the way-side, with a stake driven down through it; while that of ROMILLY
had mercy extended to it, on the ground that the act had been occasioned
by '_temporary mental derangement_' caused by his grief for the death of
his wife!

84. To _reason_ with passion like that of the unfortunate SMITH, is
perfectly useless; you may, with as much chance of success, reason and
remonstrate with the winds or the waves: if you make impression, it
lasts but for a moment: your effort, like an inadequate stoppage of
waters, only adds, in the end, to the violence of the torrent: the
current must have and will have its course, be the consequences