I execrated
it as the vilest and most insufferable pedantry. I exclaimed in the bitterness
of my heart, Of what value is a fair fame? It is the jewel of men formed to be
amused with baubles. Without it I might have had serenity of heart and
chearfulness of occupation, peace and liberty; why should I consign my happiness
to other men's arbitration? But, if a fair fame were of the most inexpressible
value, is this the method which common sense would prescribe to retrieve it? The
language which these institutions hold out to the unfortunate is, Come, and be
shut out from the light of day, be the associate of those whom society has
marked out for her abhorrence, be the slave of jailers, be loaded with fetters;
thus shall you be cleared from every unworthy aspersion, and restored to
reputation and honour! This is the consolation she affords to those whom
malignity or folly, private pique or unfounded positiveness have without the
smallest foundation loaded with calumny. For myself I felt my own innocence, and
I soon found upon enquiry that three fourths of those who are regularly
subjected to a similar treatment are persons whom even with all the
superciliousness and precipitation of our courts of justice no evidence can be
found sufficient to convict. How slender then must be that man's portion of
information and discernment, who is willing to commit his character and welfare
to such guardianship!
    But my case was even worse than this. I intimately felt that a trial, such
as our institutions have hitherto been able to make it, is only the worthy
sequel of such a beginning. What chance was there, after the purgation I was now
suffering, that I should come out acquitted at last? What probability was there
that the trial I had endured in the house of Mr. Falkland was not just as fair
as any that might be expected to follow? No, I anticipated my own condemnation.
    Thus was I cut off for ever from all that existence has to bestow, from all
the high hopes I had so often conceived, from all the future excellence my soul
so much delighted to imagine, to spend a few weeks in a miserable prison, and
then to perish by the hand of the public executioner. No language can do justice
to the indignant and soul-sickening loathing that these ideas excited. My
resentment was not restricted to my prosecutor, but extended itself to the whole
machine of society. I could never believe that all this was the fair result of
institutions inseparable from the general good. I regarded the whole human
species as so many hangmen and torturers. I