Is it then true, that Reason to man is the ultimate faculty, and that, to convince a _reasonable_ man, it is sufficient to adduce adequate reasons or arguments? How, if this be so, does it happen that we reject as insufficient the _reasoning_ of a friend in our affliction for this or that _cause or reason_, yet are comforted, soothed, and reassured, by similar or far less sufficient _reasons_, when urged by a friendly and affectionate woman? It is no answer to say that women were made _comforters_; that it is the tone, and, in the instance of man's chief, best comforter, the wife of his youth, the mother of his children, the oneness with himself, which gives value to the consolation; the _reasons_ are the same, whether urged by man, woman, or child. It must be, therefore, that there is something in the will itself, above and beyond, if not higher than, reason. Besides, is Reason or the reasoning always the same, even when free from passion, film, or fever? I speak of the same person. Does he hold the doctrine of temperance in equal reverence when hungry as after he is sated? Does he at forty retain the same _reason_, only extended and developed, as he possessed at four and twenty? Does he not love the meat in his youth which he cannot endure in his old age? But these are appetites, and therefore no part of him. Is not a man one to-day and another to-morrow? Do not the very ablest and wisest of men attach greater weight at one moment to an argument or a _reason_ than they do at another? Is this a want of sound and stable judgment? If so, what then is this perfect reason? for we have shown what it is not. * * * * * It is prettily feigned, that when Plutus is sent from Jupiter, he limps and gets on very slowly at first; but when he comes from Pluto, he runs and is swift of foot. This, rightly taken, is a great sweetener of slow gains. Bacon (alas! the day) seems to have had this in mind when he says, "seek not proud gains, but such as thou mayst get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly." He that is covetous makes too much haste; and the wise man saith of him, "he cannot be innocent." * * * * * I have often been pained by observing in others, and was fully conscious in myself, of a _sympathy_ with those of rank and condition in preference to their inferiors, and never discovered the source of this sympathy until one day at Keswick I heard a thatcher's wife crying her heart out for the death of her little child. It was given me all at once to feel, that I sympathized equally with the poor and the rich in all that related to the best part of humanity--the affections; but that, in what relates to fortune, to _mental_ misery, struggles, and conflicts, we reserve consolation and sympathy for those who can appreciate its force and value. * * * * *