HIS FEELING OF INDEPENDENCE. 355 



and Schoolmasters, one or two being added which it 

 is unnecessary to quote. Miller says that Walter was, 

 like himself, l a Whig in principle, and a Tory in feeling, 

 a Tory at least as far as a profound respect for the great 

 and the venerable can constitute one such/ It is im- 

 portant to have this description of his relation to Whig- 

 ism on the one hand, and to Toryism on the other, in 

 his own words. It exactly corresponds to the fact. 



He refers in the same letter to an offer of pecuniary 

 assistance which Miss D unbar has made him, with the 

 same object as that of Miss Eraser. He firmly declines 

 to accept it; but, with chivalrous delicacy of feeling, half 

 confesses that he may be carrying his assertion of inde- 

 pendence too far, and begs her to pardon him the excess 

 of a virtue to which he has owed much. ' " It is not given 

 to man/' says your favourite Sir James Mackintosh, "to 

 rest in the proper medium." And why ? Because in 

 the nature of things the principle that holds us aloof 

 from one class of derelictions tends to precipitate us on 

 another. We stand within a circle the whole circum- 

 ference of which is evil, and cannot recede from any one 

 point in it without approaching nearer to some other 

 point. And if, in this way, the spirit which has been 

 bestowed upon me to preserve me from all the little 

 meannesses of solicitation, and to secure to me in my 

 humble sphere that feeling of self-respect, without which 

 no one can fulfil the duties of a man, or deserve the 

 respect of others, should at times impel me towards the 

 opposite extreme, and make me in some little degree 

 jealous of even the kindness of a friend, will you not 

 tolerate in me a weakness so necessarily, so inseparably 

 connected with that species of strength which renders 

 me, if anything does, in some measure worthy your 

 friendship ? ' 



