‘I will answer you, Mr. Forester,’ said Mr. Sarcastic, ‘for myself and the rest of the company. You shock our feelings excessively by calling us the primary causes of slavery; and there are very few among us who have not shuddered at the tales of West Indian cruelty. I assure you we are very liberal of theoretical sympathy; but as to practical abstinence from the use of sugar, do you consider what it is you require? Do you consider how very agreeable to us is the sensation of sweetness in our palates? Do you suppose we would give up that sensation because human creatures of the same flesh and blood as ourselves are oppressed and enslaved, and flogged and tortured, to procure it for us? Do you consider that Custom[75] is the great lord and master of our conduct? And do you suppose that any feeling of pity, and sympathy, and charity, and benevolence, and justice, will overcome the power of Custom, more especially where any pleasure of sense is attached to his dominion? In appealing to our pockets, indeed, you touched us to the quick: you aimed your eloquence at our weak side—you hit us in the vulnerable point; but if it should appear that in this particular we really might save our money, yet being expended in a matter of personal and sensual gratification, it is not to be supposed so completely lost and wasted as it would be if it were given either to a friend or a stranger in distress. I will admit, however, that you have touched our feelings a little, but this disagreeable impression will soon wear off: with some of us it will last as long as pity for a starving beggar, and with others as long as grief for the death of a friend; and I find, on a very accurate average calculation, that the duration of the former may be considered to be at least three minutes, and that of the latter at most ten days. ‘Mr. Sarcastic,’ said Anthelia, ‘you do not render justice to the feelings of the company; nor is human nature so selfish and perverted as you seem to consider it. Though there are undoubtedly many who sacrifice the general happiness of humankind to their own selfish gratification, yet even these, I am willing to believe, err not in cruelty but in ignorance, from not seeing the consequences of their own actions; but it is not by persuading them that all the world is as bad as themselves, that you will give them clearer views and better feelings. Many are the modes of evil—many the scenes of human suffering; but if the general condition of man is ever to be ameliorated, it can only be through the medium of BELIEF IN HUMAN VIRTUE.’ ‘Well, Forester,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘if you wish to increase the numbers of the Anti-saccharine Society, set me down for one.’ ‘Remember,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘by enrolling your name among us you pledge yourself to perpetual abstinence from West Indian produce.’ ‘I am aware of it,’ said Sir Telegraph, ‘and you shall find me zealous in the cause.’