The World, being in the constant commission of vast quantities of injustice, is a little too apt to comfort itself with the idea that if the victim of its falsehood and malice have a clear conscience, he cannot fail to be sustained under his trials, and somehow or other to come right at last; “in which case,” say they who have hunted him down, “—through we certainly do not expect it—nobody will be better pleased than we.” Whereas, the World would do well to reflect, that injustice is in itself, to every generous and properly constituted mind, an injury, of all others the most insufferable, the most torturing, and the most hard to bear; and that many clear consciences have gone to their account elsewhere, and many sound hearts have broken, because of this very reason; the knowledge of their own deserts only aggravating their sufferings, and rendering them the less endurable. Kings are accountable for injustice permitted as well as done.

Nothing, humanely speaking, can deserve higher respect than a profession in which a man devotes the labors of his life to the support of justice. Would it not be justice to oblige every man who proposes a medicine to sale, first to make proof that it is harmless at least, by taking it himself? The agitation of the mind baffles all the power of medicine, and till the mind is relieved, the body can never be restored. It is impossible to study the human frame without a little studying of the human mind. There is nothing so difficult as to manage the public mind. Private vices are public benefits. Are there as many hells as there are crimes? If not, all punishments are alike. The opinion of a man forms of his own prudence is measured by that of the company he keeps. If prudence consists in wishing well to one’s self, young flirts are as prudent as old souls. The Doctor knew his fellow creatures better than most men, knew that inner life which so seldom unfolds itself to unanointed eyes.

There is nothing so pernicious as an imprudent connection. The theft of a woman’s affections is not so atrocious as that of her honor. I was astonished to perceive that among the number of natives that surrounded us not a single female was to be seen. At that time I was ignorant of the fact that by the operation of the taboo the use of canoes in all parts of the island is rigorously prohibited to the entire sex, for whom it is death even to be seen entering one when hauled on shore; consequently, whenever a Marquesan lady voyages by water, she puts in requisition the paddles of her own fair body. It requires great courage and great art for women to guard against so many invisible powers that war against them every moment. Manhood is not worthy but if it be melded with wisdom. Hunger is as leisurely a death as breaking upon the wheel. Very often there is an insatiable instinct that demands friendship, love, and intimate communion, but is forced to pine in empty forms; a hunger of the heart, which finds only shadows to feed upon.

A saint abroad and a devil at home; I have heard many cry out against sin in the pulpit who yet can abide it well enough in the heart, house, and conversation. Some have considered the larger part of mankind in the light of actors, as personating characters no more their own, and to which they have no better title than the players hath to be in earnest thought the king or emperor whom he represents. Thus the hypocrite may be said to be a player; and indeed the Greeks called them both one and the same name. The happiness of some lives is distributed pretty evenly over the whole stretch from the cradle to the grave, while that of others comes all at once, glorifying some particular epoch and leaving the rest in shadow. There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort. A new creed became mine—a belief in happiness.

Nobody can call such an undersized man handsome, he is not (Ryan) five foot nine. Perhaps it is the instinctive trait of most of us to seek an explanation for any great happiness as we are always prone to discuss the causes of our adversity. Long habit has the art of giving charms to places; or, rather, ‘tis the people who inhabit them. The vermin race are every treacherous cruel, and cowardly, whilst those endowed with strength and power are generous, brave and gentle. Every human being, when given over to the devil, is sure to have the wizard mark upon him, in one form or another. The most sacred engagements are daily violated; friendship and love, the most endearing bonds of society, are made a cloak to perpetrate the most execrable villainies, the ruin of innocence, the destruction of the most unsuspecting and honest man. Either we must suppose that the love of evil is born with us (which would be an insult to the Deity), or we mist attribute them to the suggestions of infernal influence.

No man falls like Lucifer from Heaven—the progress of evil is slow and not easily perceived. If thou  hast defeated Circe, and escaped all swinish transformations then mayest thou proceed in safety and resist the sirens. You do not know, for you could never learn it from your own heart, which is all purity and rectitude, what a mixture of good there may be in things evil; and how the greatest criminal, if you look at his conduct from his own point of view, or from any side point, may seem not so unquestionably guilty, after all. Sin has really becomes an instrument most effective in the education of intellect and soul. Fiends we are all, till God’s grace comes.  And Earth was Heaven a little the worse for wear. And Heaven was Earth, done up again to look like new. The Heaven and the Earth must not be shaken. There is a many ways of showing the heart.