Of earth, hath passed away;
The heart that once throbbed high with health and life
Beats faint and wearied with the ceaseless strife
Which there has held its sway.
BY G. P. R. JAMES.
Long experience of any thing existing, has shown mankind all its benefits and all its evils; but beside this, there is an indirect advantage in retaining that which is, namely, that it has adjusted itself to the things by which it is surrounded; and there is an indirect disadvantage in change, namely, that one can never calculate what derangements of all relations may take place, by any great alteration of even one small part in the complicated machine of any state or society.
It is difficult to find words to express the infinite; and although it may seem a pleonasmatic expression, I must say that all the varieties of human character have infinite varieties within themselves. However, the easily impressible character, that which suffers opinions, feelings, thoughts, purposes, actions to be continually altered by the changing circumstances around—the chameleon character, if I may so call it—is, perhaps, the most dangerous to itself, and to those it affects, of any that I know. It goes beyond the chameleon, indeed. The reptile only reflects the colors of objects near, retaining its own form and nature. The impressible character, on the contrary, is changed in every line, as well as in every hue, by that with which it comes in contact. Certain attributes it certainly does retain. The substance is the same, but the color and the form are always varying. In the substance lies the permanence and the identity. All else is moulded and painted by circumstance.