PAST AND PRESENT. 285 



James ! * They are sincere, my L , when you form the 

 burden of them, but they are not the prayers of the 



righteous 



* My mother, as you are aware, has a very small 

 garden behind her house. It has produced this season 

 one of the most gigantic thistles of the kind which 

 gardeners term the Scotch, that I ever yet saw. The 

 height is fully nine feet, the average breadth nearly 

 five. Some eight years ago I intended building a little 

 house for myself in this garden. I was to cover it 

 outside with ivy, and to line it inside with books ; and 

 here was I to read and write and think all my life long 

 not altogether so independent of the world as 

 Diogenes in his tub, or the savage in the recesses of 

 the forest, but quite as much as is possible for man in 

 his social state. Here was I to attain to wealth not by 

 increasing my goods, but by moderating my desires. 

 Of the thirst after wealth I had none, I could live on 

 half-a-crown per week and be content ; nor yet was I 

 desirous of power, I sought not to be any man's 

 master^ and I had spirit enough to preserve me from 

 being any man's slave. I had no heart to oppress ; 

 why wish, then, for the seat or the power of the op- 

 pressor? I had no dread of being subjected to op- 

 pression ; did the proudest or the loftiest dare infringe 

 on my rights as a man, there might be disclosed to him, 

 perchance, 



" Through peril and alarm 

 The might that slumber'd in a peasant's arm." 



Even for fame itself 1 had no very exciting desire. If I 

 met with it in quest of amusement, well ; if not, I 



* 'The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.' 

 James v. 16. 



