LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 101 



than blasphemous, he exclaims : " Behold ! it 

 does me no harm ! it gives me no pain ! it causes 

 me no inconvenience ! " thus appealing, in his de- 

 fence, to the silence of that voice which he has 

 himself forcibly silenced. This is abominable ! 

 Let every man drink what poison he pleases ; of 

 this I do not complain : but let him not attempt 

 to defend the practice : for this is to allure others 

 into the same trap which is already closing its iron 

 teeth upon his own hapless person. 



But, luckily for us frail mortals, when this natu- 

 ral SENSIBILITY has been only impaired not utterly 

 destroyed it can be restored by rest, and only by 

 rest; that is, by ceasing to stimulate it. A few com- 

 mon and well-known facts will be sufficient to prove 

 this. If a man has taken snuff for ten years, and 

 then leave it off for ten years, should he be fool 

 enough to begin again, he will be as much affected 

 by it as he was at the first pinch. If a man spend an 

 hour in the belfry of a church while the bells are 

 ringing, when he comes down he will be almost 

 deaf for a time : shortly, however, he will recover 

 his hearing. If a man look at the sun for a minute 

 or two, when he first looks aside he will not be 

 able to distinguish objects : he will, however, pre- 

 sently recover accurate vision. If a man has drunk 



