as it ought to be, that he has sharpened and hardened his eye sufficiently long for introspection, and is accustomed to severe discipline and even severe words.

He will say: “There is something cruel in the tendency of my spirit”: let the virtuous and amiable try to convince him that it is not so! In fact, it would sound nicer, if, instead of our cruelty, perhaps our “extravagant honesty” were talked about, whispered about, and glorified — we free, VERY free spirits — and some day perhaps SUCH will actually be our — posthumous glory! Meanwhile — for there is plenty of time until then — we should be least inclined to deck ourselves out in such florid and fringed moral verbiage; our whole former work has just made us sick of this taste and its sprightly exuberance.