_Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ If every individual enemy to the slave-trade would follow your example, the object would no doubt be much advanced; but the practice of one individual more or less has little or no influence on general society: most of us go on with the tide, and the dread of the single word _quiz_ has more influence in keeping the greater part of us within the pale of custom, fashion, and precedent, than all the moral reasonings and declamations in the world will ever have in persuading us to break through it. As to the diffusion of liberty, and the general happiness of mankind, which used to be your favourite topics when we were at college together, I should have thought your subsequent experience would have shown you that there is not one person in ten thousand who knows what liberty means, or cares a single straw for any happiness but his own—— _Mr. Forester._ Which his own miserable selfishness must estrange from him for ever. He whose heart has never glowed with a generous resolution, who has never felt the conscious triumph of a disinterested sacrifice, who has never sympathised with human joys or sorrows, but when they have had a direct and palpable reference to himself, can never be acquainted with even the semblance of happiness. His utmost enjoyment must be many degrees inferior to that of a pig, inasmuch as the sordid mire of selfish and brutal stupidity is more defiling to the soul, than any coacervation of mere material mud can possibly be to the body. The latter may be cleared away with two or three ablutions, but the former cleaves and accumulates into a mass of impenetrable corruption, that bids defiance to the united powers of Hercules and Alpheus. _Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ Be that as it may, every man will continue to follow his own fancy. The world is bad enough, I daresay; but it is not for you or me to mend it. _Mr. Forester._ There is the keystone of the evil—mistrust of the influence of individual example. ‘We are bad ourselves, because we despair of the goodness of others.’[6] Yet the history of the world abounds with sudden and extraordinary revolutions in the opinions of mankind, which have been effected by single enthusiasts.