"Upon this point, Munro, you may be correct. I do not mean to say that hatred and a desire to destroy are consequent to antipathies such as you describe; but still, something may be said in favor of such a notion. It appears to me but natural to seek the destruction of that which is odious or irksome to any of our senses. Why do you crush the crawling spider with your heel? You fear not its venom; inspect it, and the mechanism of its make, the architecture of its own fabrication, are, to the full, as wonderful as anything within your comprehension; but yet, without knowing why, with an impulse given you, as it would seem, from infancy, you seek its destruction with a persevering industry, which might lead one to suppose you had in view your direst enemy." "This is all very true; and from infancy up we do this thing, but the cause can not be in any loathsomeness which its presence occasions in the mind, for we perceive the same boy destroying with measured torture the gaudiest butterfly which his hat can encompass." "_Non sequitur_," said Rivers. "What's that? some of your d----d law gibberish, I suppose. If you want me to talk with you at all, Guy, you must speak in a language I understand." "Why, so I will, Wat. I only meant to say, in a phrase common to the law, and which your friend Pippin makes use of a dozen times a day, that it did not follow from what you said, that the causes which led to the death of the spider and the butterfly were the same. This we may know by the manner in which they are respectively destroyed. The boy, with much precaution and an aversion he does not seek to disguise in his attempts on the spider, employs his shoe or a stick for the purpose of slaughter. But, with the butterfly, the case is altogether different. He first catches, and does not fear to hold it in his hand. He inspects it closely, and proceeds to analyze that which his young thought has already taught him is a beautiful creation of the insect world. He strips it, wing by wing of its gaudy covering; and then, with a feeling of ineffable scorn, that so wealthy a noble should go unarmed and unprotected, he dashes him to the ground, and terminates his sufferings without further scruple. The spider, having a sting, he is compelled to fear, and consequently taught to respect. The feelings are all perfectly natural, however, which prompt his proceedings. The curiosity is common and innate which impels him to the inspection of the insect; and that feeling is equally a natural impulse which prompts him to the death of the spider without hesitation. So with me--it is enough that I hate this boy, though possessed of numberless attractions of mind and person. Shall I do him the kindness to inquire whether there be reason for the mood which prompts me to destroy him?"