STEPHEN SORROWFUL.
REMARKS.
Custom regulates our ideas of shame. In China, the emperor orders the bastinado to be given to a minister or a mandarin; and afterward these persons continue in their employments, without thinking themselves dishonoured or degraded. They are like scholars who return to their places after having been whipped.
The idea of virtue is become so effaced, that scarcely do we hear the name of it pronounced. The usual expression now is, an honest man, which contains but negative qualities; or sometimes qualities are mentioned, as bravery, fidelity, &c. but a collective word which expresses them all is seldom made use of.
For the New-York Weekly Magazine.