LOOKING-GLASS. 
127 
Ctradual or cafual alterations as were not formed bv 
the great Creative hand. 
By continually comparing notes within ourfelves, 
or reaping the fruit of daily experience in the circle 
of our friends, and looking, with penetrating eyes, 
at their lineaments, not only as impreffed with pall: 
lives, but according as we have known them, with- 
out difguife, from an early period, we may be able 
to afcertain the diliinftion |j^twixt the natural ftamp 
and their acquired air. It jsit'^en only that we fliall 
be qualified to judge how much thofe outward figns 
correfpond with the mofi: fecret inclinations, fince 
every deviation from the paths of Virtue will leave 
a track behind. A courfe of excelfes or iniquity 
disfigures a man, and degrades him in his own 
eftimation, as well as in the world’s eye, which he 
conftantly avoids j for, being grow nugly, or fcarcely 
known to his neighbours, he dares not look them 
full in the face. 
Such hudies as thefe fliould be accompanied with 
varied obfervations and continual demenftrations in 
all the walks of life, in feenes of bufinefs and plea- 
fure, as well as in the haunts of indolence and dif- 
fipation. 
Thus piercing eyes would become familiarized 
with what might be called merely contracled or 
profelfional looks, while the judgment was exercif* 
ed in forming a fiandard of opinions, upon examples 
correfpond- 
