LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. HI 



To prove this let us take a peep into " my lady's 

 chamber." Here you will find the same circum- 

 stances of heightened SENSIBILITY, and depreciated 

 CONTRACTILITY, which you observed in the sick- 

 room only in a less degree. It is true, that she 

 can bear an ordinary degree of light without pain, 

 and that the sound of your foot-fall may not give 

 her the headache ; but if you leave the door ajar, 

 she will most likely take cold; if the force of your 

 friendship cause you to press her hand a little too 

 forcefully, she will assuredly scream ; and if you 

 steal slily behind her, when she thinks she is alone, 

 and cry, " Bo to a goose !" she will in all probabi- 

 lity fall into hysterics. If you press her arm 

 strongly between your finger and thumb, you will 

 make it black and blue ; while it would require, 

 in order to produce the same effect on one of Mr. 

 Barclay's draymen, little less than the gripe of a 

 blacksmith's vice. "The hand of little employ- 

 ment hath the daintier sense." 



So much for her SENSIBILITY ; now for her 

 CONTRACTILITY. Could she carry a bushel-basket 

 of potatoes upon her head, for a mile, without 

 resting? Not she. Yet why can she not? It is 

 true, she is a lady ; but, as Burns says, 

 "A man's a mail for a' that." 



