As ruthless as a baby with a worm,
As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows
To pity—more from ignorance than will.”
Who can say, asks Samuel Rogers, “In such circumstances I should have done otherwise?” Who, did he but reflect by what slow gradations, often by how many strange occurrences, we are led astray; with how much reluctance, how much agony, how many efforts to escape, how many sighs, how many tears—who, did he but reflect for a moment, would have the heart to cast a stone?[20]
The autobiographer of one of Mr. Wilkie Collins’s earlier fictions proposes in an opening chapter to give a sketch of his character. But he sensibly refrains from the execution of a too ambitious plan. For, “what man can say: I will sound the depth of my own vices and measure the height of my own virtues; and be as good as his word? We can neither know nor judge ourselves—others may judge, but cannot know us—God alone judges and knows too.”
“Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord—its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias: