"What I might be tempted to do, or how far I might relax from my system, to please the ladies, (replied De Clavering,) I cannot tell till I become more _a man of the world,_ and feel myself more attached to many of its customs: but this I do know, there are a set of patients to whom I could not sacrifice my own sentiments to obtain the command of their purses. For instance,--can a man, who has wasted his youth in vice and debauchery, justly complain of a premature old age? or ought he to excite the pity of any one who knew the source whence his miseries originated? Can we sympathize with the man of business, who has brought upon himself the torturing paroxysms of a fever by the disappointment of some monopolizing plan, the success of which must have been productive of distress and misery to many hundreds of their fellow-creatures. Can the voluptuary and the drunkard think themselves entitled either to flattery or compassion, when their sufferings have been occasioned by eating till they gained a surfeit, or by drinking so hard as to make a kind of turnpike-road from their stomachs to their bowels." "All in the way of business, (said Edwin.) Instead of quarrelling with the cause, you have nothing more to do, my good friend, but to turn their follies to your own account, and do as thousands have done before you--make them contribute in some way or other to the good of the community." "If we were disposed to quarrel with vice and folly every time we encounter them, (said Camelford,) we should be engaged in a perpetual contest, and should only ket proken pones and the plister of contention for our pains." "True, (replied the venerable father Anselm, who till now had observed a placid silence as he listened to the above conversation,) we should all agree to make the same allowance for the failings and frailties of others as we are inclined to do when we sit in judgement upon our own, and rather strive to find excuses than causes to condemn; like the blessed master we all unite to serve, whose precepts and practice were calculated for the good and happiness of all mankind." "Just so would mine be, my dear father, (said De Clavering,) so far as an erring mortal can be supposed to copy a divine original; but I would not flatter people with a belief that I could feel for the miseries entailed by vice as I would for those which originated from any other cause. There are moments when I see the patient and virtuous sufferer looking up to me for health and life, that I would compound with pleasure to be any thing rather than what I am." "Rather (said Sir Philip) endeavour to rest satisfied with being what you are,--the true Samaritan, the friendly physician, who assumes the appearance of misanthropy, without having a grain of it in his composition." "In order to conceal feelings that do ho-honour to his profession and to human nature."