“To this gentle remonstrance, Paul replied:--‘I answer your letter willingly, for the sake of its argument, which your good heart rather than your good head has dictated. Your proverbs are not reasons, or if they are, they prove too much: for if I would swim with the stream, this stream would often make shipwreck of my virtue--the kingdom of vice is as great and extensive as the kingdom of fashion; and if I must howl with the wolves, why should I not rob with them? If the shell is injured the kernel suffers also,’ you say. But wherefore? Let us decide what does injure the shell. You consider that an evil to Diogenes which others hold an advantage. Did the so-called injury rob this great man of his philosophy, his good heart, his wit, his virtue? It robbed him not--but it gave him peace, independence of outward judgments, freedom from tormenting wants, and the incapacity of being wounded; and with this consciousness he could venture upon the punishment of every vice. Great man! Thank God that thou wert born in a country where they wondered at thy wisdom, instead of, as at present, punishing it. Fools would commit the only wise man to a madhouse; but, like Socrates, he would ennoble his prison. “‘The painter would be ridiculous in offending against costume.’ This is true, but more witty than applicable to me. I need only say, that the painter of costume is not the greatest in his art; he is great whose pencil creates, not after the tailor, but after God; paints bodies, not dresses. The painter’s creations can only please through form, which is the shell; and am I designed for that? Is it my destination, with my organised ugliness, to please? Scarcely--if I would. “‘But enough. I hold the constant regard that we pay in all our actions to the judgments of others as the poison of our peace, our reason, and our virtue. Upon this slave’s chain have I long filed, but I scarcely hope ever to break it.’ “This humorous controversy was kept up for some months on paper, as games of chess are played in Holland, without either party saying check to the king. At last Paul consented, as he called it, to _inhull_ his person, and put an end to this tragicomical affair, by the following circular addressed to his friends:-- ‘ADVERTISEMENT.