of concealment. It was the seat
of merriment and hilarity; but the hilarity that characterised it produced no
correspondent feelings in my bosom. The persons who composed this society had
each of them cast off all control from established principle; their trade was
terror, and their constant object to elude the vigilance of the community. The
influence of these circumstances was visible in their character. I found among
them benevolence and kindness; they were strongly susceptible of emotions of
generosity. But, as their situation was precarious, their dispositions were
proportionably fluctuating. Inured to the animosity of their species, they were
irritable and passionate. Accustomed to exercise harshness towards the subject
of their depredations, they did not always confine their brutality within that
scope. They were habituated to consider wounds, and bludgeons and stabbing, as
the obvious mode of surmounting every difficulty. Uninvolved in the debilitating
routine of human affairs, they frequently displayed an energy, which from every
impartial observer would have extorted veneration. Energy is perhaps of all
qualities the most valuable; and a just political system would possess the means
of extracting from it thus circumstanced its beneficial qualities, instead of
consigning it as now to indiscriminate destruction. We act like the chymist who
should reject the finest ore, and employ none but what was sufficiently debased
to fit it immediately for the vilest uses. But the energy of these men, such as
I beheld it, was in the highest degree misapplied, unassisted by liberal and
enlightened views, and directed only to the most narrow and contemptible
purposes.
    The residence I have been describing might to many persons have appeared
attended with intolerable inconveniences. But, exclusively of its advantages as
a field for speculation, it was Elysium compared with that from which I had just
escaped. Displeasing company, incommodious apartments, filthiness and riot, lost
the circumstance by which they could most effectually disgust, when I was not
compelled to remain with them. All hardships I could patiently endure, in
comparison with the menace of a violent and untimely death. There was no
suffering that I could not persuade myself to consider as trivial, except that
which flowed from the tyranny, the frigid precaution, or the inhuman revenge of
my own species.
    My recovery advanced in the most favourable manner. The attention and
kindness of my protector were incessant, and the rest caught the spirit from his
example. The old woman who superintended the houshold, still retained her
animosity. She considered me as the cause of the expulsion of Gines from the
fraternity; Gines had been the object of her particular partiality; and, zealous
as she was for the public concern, she thought an