8UBTERRANBAN RBCE8SB8. Ill 



settlement of a dispute is suggested, the words, * O, that is impossi- 

 ble,* are uttered without thought. If the phrase * O, that is impos- 

 sible,' were used when a resort to single combat was hinted at, it 

 might be tolerated ; although then the laws of language would be 

 infringed. It is impossible for man to arrest the course of a comet, 

 but it is not impossible for him either to fight or to "make peace, 

 Men have done both, and that which has been done may be 

 repeated." 



" My courage would have been impeached had I made any over- 

 tures towards reconciliation. 



" To introduce the word * courage,' as you have now done, is to 

 prostitute it. Courage is that which scorns in the day of battle to 

 shrink from taking its share of the danger. To s^reen itself at the 

 expense of comrades, being altogether unjust, is abominable. Cou- 

 rage would (as history records it has done) .prompt two leaders of 

 armies to engage in single combat, instead of engaging both annies — 

 thereby preventing the effusion of rivers of blood. Courage inter- 

 poses to rescue a traveller from a highwayman, a drowning man from 

 a watery grave, or a fellow-creature from a flaming dwelling. In 

 the heat of wine, a miserable brawl arises in a company. What has 

 courage to do with it ? — what imminent danger does any one need 

 to be rescued from ? — what is necessary beyond a little every-day, 

 common-place tact ? Has philosophy advanced so little, that men 

 are ignorant about the commotions into which the mind can be 

 thrown by the most trivial event ? and that the remarks made at such 

 times are far different from those made when the mind is calm and 

 undisturbed ? My. friend, you perceive, can account for the serving 

 a challenge after a pitiful brawl, on jio q^er principle than that 

 insanity results from the passion to which the individual is subject." 



" May not his seclusion from society for twenty-fiye years have 

 incapacitated him flhom judging f** - - ' 



*' My young friend, — my lengthened seclusion from soeiety enables 

 me to judge more impartially. I am unini passioned — unbiassed-^ 

 when I give it as my deliberate opini(m that the mists of insanitj 

 envelope the mind at such a period. This is an opinion which I caB 

 never relinquish j my reason, calmly and copUy exercised, will not 

 allow me." 



