_Mr. Fax._ Contemplate any of these men only in the sphere of their routine, and you will think them utterly destitute of all human sympathy. Make them change places with each other, and you will see symptoms of natural feelings. Custom cannot kill the better feelings of human nature: it merely lays them asleep. _Mr. Forester._ You must acknowledge, then, at least, that their sleep is very sound. _Mr. Fax._ In most cases certainly as sound as that of Epimenides, or of the seven sleepers of Ephesus. But these did wake at last, and, therefore, according to Aristotle, they had always the capacity of waking. _Mr. Forester._ You must allow me to wait for a similar proof before I admit such a capacity in respect to the feelings of some of the characters we have mentioned. Yet I am no sceptic in human virtue. _Mr. Fax._ You have no reason to be, with so much evidence before your eyes of the excellence of the past generation, and I do not suppose the present is much worse than its predecessors. Read the epitaphs around you, and see what models and mirrors of all the social virtues have left the examples of their shining light to guide the steps of their posterity. _Mr. Forester._ I observe the usual profusion of dutiful sons, affectionate husbands, faithful friends, kind neighbours, and honest men. These are the luxuriant harvest of every churchyard. But is it not strange that even the fertility of fiction should be so circumscribed in the variety of monumental panegyric? Yet a few words comprehend the summary of all the moral duties of ordinary life. Their degrees and diversities are like the shades of colour, that shun for the most part the power of language: at all events, the nice distinctions and combinations that give individuality to historical character scarcely come within the limits of sepulchral inscription, which merely serves to testify the regret of the survivors for one whose society was dear, and whose faults are forgotten. For there is a feeling in the human mind, that, in looking back on former scenes of intercourse with those who are passed for ever beyond the limits of injury and resentment, gradually destroys all the bitterness and heightens all the pleasures of the remembrance; as, when we revert in fancy to the days of our childhood, we scarcely find a vestige of their tears, pains, and disappointments, and perceive only their fields, their flowers, and their sunshine, and the smiles of our little associates.