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    earnest admiration , and they do not frown back upon me , tior call my gaze rude , intrusive impertinence . Such might be the interchanges between man and man , with the added and immeasurable happiness of thoughts' and speech communion , if man had not , from generation to generation , plotted to thwart the beauteous design , while the moral abortions of each generation contributed to clog the benevolent scheme ; and man again bands his fellows into masses armed against

    the labours ^ of the few who would put forth their strength in the toil of uprooting conventional poisons , and planting social happiness . Ay , ay , such men must be spurned , and scorned , and scoffed into martyrdom . Yours , sir , is an Utopian creed , Mr . Pel . Verjuice . ' And you have an easy way of settling the affair . It saves a world of thinking . I may be uncivil , good reader , but I think I am not unkind to you .

    That the labour would be great I admit ; the change to this state cannot be instantaneous , but it would not require half as many generations to purify humanity as have been engaged in corrupting it , if the attempt were made with half the diligence and half the earnestness . One of my original weaknesses remains with me still in full force . Tt is the instant pain and flush of blood of which I am sensible

    whenever any person has attracted the supercilious smile , titter , sneer , or a ridiculing whisper , by an accidental awkwardness or embarrassment , or by any mistake in the ' proprieties * of life . I remember this weakness from as early a period as I can remember having eyes ; I can neither titter , sneer , nor whisper on' such occasions . I have now before my remembrance a young lady coming late into church ; as she walks down the aisle , many eyes are turned upon her ; she

    shrinks from the gaze , and so do I . I am sitting * at the end of a bench in one of the cross aisles , one of the poor children of a Sunday school . I was at my laming ' six days in the week by my father ' s order ; on the seventh I was driven , not by him . Hurrying into her pew , apart of her dress is entangled in the doorway . The whole

    congregation suspends the response of'Lord have mercy on us , &c * to look , some to laugh , others to whisper and exchange a mirth » kindled glance ; and all remorseless of the deep blush , and fever of exquisite sensitiveness disturbed , which are visible in the victim of their notice . I tremble , and feel the shame which I am sure she feels . I feel as if

    I were myself the object . Her pew , it is necessary—very necessary , to say , is lined with no velvet , no green baize and brass nailed , or a dozen gentlemanly' men would have sprang forward td release the entangled gown . This is before I had completed my eighth year . Yes , this weakness remains with me still . I saw , a few evenings since , a lecturer , in adjusting his apparatus , draw part of it down on his head ; a laugh among the auditory showed that this was considered good fun . He might have been hurt severely ; no matter ; sidered good fun . He might have been hurt severely ; no matter ;

    the first impression taken was the fun of the thing . On hearing the laugh , he turned round , and said , * such things did not abash him . ' His saying so was mere bravado , for he was embarrassed , and so was I ; but whether his embarrassment were occasioned by the accident , or the mirth which it excited , 1 know not . Go to a concert , or any other public assembly , you may note the cold look , or supercilious sneer , or the smile of ridicule at any little defect ; while the conscious timidity , the feverish sense of abashedness in the object , increases the 2 F 2

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    Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice . $ 96

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 395, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/35/