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She might have read her fate in those lines and have fled. But vanity blinded her, so she died; for all the time her hero was clinging with profound if secret devotion to his "Dear Stellakins," his "roguish, impudent, pretty M.D."! We have done with Vanessa. Let us turn the pure face of Stella to the light.

Read in the light of these two stories, what manner of man was this Dean Swift? Cruel, repulsive? How then account for lifelong devotion of one woman and the overwhelming passion of another? Or will you prefer to take his books and read his character from them? Why, then, is it that you keep in the background those whole pages of genial and sunny humour, of innocent joke, and quaintly perpetrated pun? Why judge him solely by those works of his which give us least of the man and most of the politician? Why search sedulously for the possibility of a misconstruction? Why even, when taking him solely as a politician and pamphleteer-not the greatest of his glories being gained in those capacities-is dishonesty and insincerity suggested where the printed page gives no hint of dishonesty and insincerity, and where the printed page and the performed act do not give the lie to each other? He was no Irishman, says Thackeray, and then, knowing that all his political acts were performed with relation to the sister island, he is forced to declare that his patriotism was a mockery and a sham. How are we to judge of the honesty of a patriot? Is our own verdict on the life, or the verdict of the country in behalf of which the patriotism was displayed, to be accepted as the candid and final one? If the latter, the denial of Swift's insincerity is complete. It is generally known that when he lived in Dublin, the dean was so popular that lives would have been freely offered for his safety.

Possibly it is not generally known that at the present day there is no name more revered by the Irish peasantry than that of Jonathan Swift. I will take you into an Irish cabin, and at the mention of that potent name I will evoke an expression of reverence and respect, equal in intensity only to the expression of detestation and horror which would be elicited by a mention of the name of Oliver Cromwell. And his spirit has lived and lives in that country. Quite recently I was shown some numbers of a humorous and satirical journal lately started in Dublin, and which to a mind depressed by a frequent perusal of what are popularly known as "comics," is positively refreshing. A credit to any country, Zozimus-for so the paper is called-is especially creditable to the country, the organ of which, to a great extent, it is. And the spirit that gives it breath and life to-day is the same spirit which won popularity and affection for the Dean of St. Patrick's a hundred and fifty years ago. But after all this question of the nativity of great men is

for the most an empty and vain pursuit. Genius knows no geography. Its birthplace is the universe, and all that is contained therein is its birthright.

But we must not be further prolix. That "great genius and mighty intellect" was dashed always with a touch of madness. In that, and not in depravity in natural badness, find the true secret of some chapters of his life, which are sad and strange. Of that madness he was himself conscious. Great, lonely spirit! As I fancy his outline athwart the panorama of his time, I recal what some one quoted-Boswell records the story-as the great lumbering figure Dr. Johnson stalked into view: "Look, my lord, it comes." But the quotation in our case applies to the motion of a great spirit, and not to the appearance of a bulky body. That last scene of all when the touch of madness became a thick darkness; it has been written about frequently-too frequently. It is a dreadful sight to see. Well for thee, Stella, that thou didst not survive to witness this. Let us turn away from it. Let us turn away from it.

WILLIAM MACKAY.

STRAY THOUGHTS AND SHORT ESSAYS.

IV.

ON THE COMMON DISTINCTION BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

MORALITY.

THIS distinction, so commonly made in modern times, is fallacious. The idea is that a man may easily be a rogue in public matters and honest in private matters, or vice versa. This distinction arises from the common tendency to take low views of duty, and to compound for performing all our duties by the discharge of some of them. Instead of striving to be honest in all matters alike, men fall into the way of contenting themselves with honesty in some matters. In other words, instead of endeavouring to elevate their practice to their theory, they lower their theory to their practice. To countenance this proceeding they vaunt the distinction above referred to, and seem to think it not only possible, but a very common case that a man is honest in one of the grand relations of social life and dishonest in another. But a little reflection will show the fallaciousness of this distinction, the frailty of this partial honesty. Why is a man dishonest in any one of

his capacities? Because he thinks it his interest to be dishonest. It follows that whenever he may think it his interest to be dishonest in another of his capacities, he will be so. Hence there is

no valid security for his honesty in that other capacity, and no security at all, except his view of his own interest. Now we never can have any assurance as to what such a man, under certain circumstances, may think to be his interest in this other capacity.

A deliberate delinquent in one capacity must be a rogue altogether. Conscience makes no distinction between public and private misconduct; the common sense of mankind is against the distinction. Can we think, for instance, that a man who has deliberately betrayed his party, and abandoned it at a time when his co-partisans cannot guard against the consequences of his defection, can we feel such a man to be trustworthy in private matters of importance, where his honesty must be wholly depended upon? Or, vice versa, can we expect a man who has been guilty of gross private treachery, the malicious revelation of honourable confidences, the betrayal of friends, to be an honest man in public matters, when dishonesty would serve his turn? In neither case has the man the principle of honesty; and what is to be thought of the honesty of that man who is without the principle of it? In point of fact, mankind in general, not excepting those who are fond of pressing the aforesaid distinction, do not themselves trust a man in one capacity who has proved himself a rogue in another. Would a man, for instance, who had been convicted of dishonesty in private matters, be prudently charged with a public trust? Then on what ground can a man who has been guilty of political dishonesty be thought trustworthy in private affairs?

No doubt, if we could know a public knave's whole life and history, we should find him unprincipled in private affairs. Experience is in favour of this supposition; all who know the private life of some man who in public life has wilfully violated the laws of honesty, know him to be such a man as they themselves cannot confidently trust in his private relations.

As to facts, how depraved has been the private conduct of most political roués! Witness, John Wilkes, many of the heroes of the great French Revolution, Mirabeau, for example, Fox, Sheridan, and certain of the chief actors in the revolutionary disturbances of 1848-9 in Paris and Vienna, whose memory in most instances has now nearly perished from the world at large, but not in many private circles.

In fine, he who acts with the single eye and pure intent in either capacity will act similarly in the other; while corruptness in either will be accompanied with corruptness in the other, when interest would seem to point to corrupt conduct in it, notwith

standing some apparent inconsistencies which the history of mankind presents.

SELF-CONFIDENCE.

The men who dominate over others are they who seem to have no misgivings, but that everything they say and do is the right thing. If a man "believes in himself," others will readily believe in him. Unfaltering self-confidence is the parent of personal influence. The strange thing is that this self-confidence is often possessed by men who really have no right to it. There are bad people who so thoroughly believe themselves, or seem to believe themselves in the right, that others too will believe them to be so. This self-confidence is only another name for strength of character or force of will, which always gives ascendancy over other men. People can with difficulty be brought to believe that such persons are not in a right course-are not worthy of imitation. The hesitating and diffident bad man is an object of general contempt and dislike. A mixed and fluctuating character goes for little or nothing in the general estimation. Bad or good, if a man seems to believe in himself, others will believe in him, follow his leading, and quote his authority.

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A SIMILE.

As when you draw the curtains of a room at night you think that the sunlight will be entirely excluded, and notice not the little interstices which you have left, and which, when the flood of daylight is poured forth, will be disclosed by its beams, so small defects and flaws in the character lie unconcealed till the daylight of the open world poured upon them brings them out in all their reality and clearness.

INDIVIDUALITY.

Everybody appears in a somewhat different light, and stands in a different relation, with every different person who knows him. No two people have the same impressions from the same object.

VANITY.

It is easy to condemn vanity, but when we see how largely it enters into the motives of many characters, and to what useful results it may lead, it were better, instead of passing an indiscriminate condemnation on it, to determine within what limits it should be restrained, and what are its proper ends and uses in the formation of character, in the composition of motives, and in the promotion of social good. As a secondary and auxiliary motive it may be good, and it is very often allied to amiable and generous qualities and warmth of heart.

WHICH SHALL IT BE?

A SEQUEL TO "WORTH THE WINNING."

XXII.

A FLOOD OF TEARS.

"KATIE!" cried Mrs. Treeby.

Kate looked up, and seeing her mother at the window, stopped and leaned back against the parapet, looking up at Mrs. Treeby, and twitching a flower that she held in her hand. It was most graceful abandon; it made an enchanting picture. The dainty little hat on her head had got pushed back from her forehead, and showed her face radiant with health and sparkling with vivacity and intelligence. Her roseate cheeks glowed against her milkwhite skin; a sunbeam sat on her brown hair, enriching its glossiness; the full sunlight flooded her figure, incomparable for roundness and symmetry; she was Hebe, smiling with perpetual youth.

"My darling!" exclaimed Mrs. Treeby, no less in fondness than in admiration.

"Mamma, I was looking for you. I wondered where you had gone. We have been through the picture-galleries; such splendid pictures! Why didn't you come with us? What made you hide yourself up there? You look like an old lady of the middle ages, whom some knight or somebody of that sort has run away with and shut up in his castle.'

"Come up to me, my love," said Mrs. Treeby, a little gravely. She had observed with some uneasiness for some time past a change in Kate's manner. She thought she detected an excitability, mingled occasionally with a certain flippancy and artificiality of tone which contrasted painfully with her old free and natural temper. She had not been blind to Kate's restlessness and unsatisfied demeanour during the interval they had spent at home. There had been a ball lately at Ashleigh, Kate's first ball, in which she had seemed to "walk in beauty like the night," and where she had danced with wonderful ease and grace, considering her sole knowledge of that accomplishment had been derived from one or two practicings about a week previously with Lady Mary and the Duc à Duc children. Kate had been wild about the ball ever since, and seemed to think there was little worth living for but dancing. In fact, at the present moment Kate was intoxicated with the new life to which she had been transplanted, and Mrs.

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