The Sun. — 1865-08-21 (London, England)

EVERY MAN MUST BEAR HIS OWN BURDEN.  "Pardon the triteness of the remark, but it is really a very awful thing to have been born. I suppose there is hardly a human being, however thoughtless or reckless, to whom that idea has not occurred at somo time or another ; to most of us it is a familiar subject of consideration. Then why write it down here ? Because, while I was considering William Bathurst's position at this period of his life just now, the fact came home to me, not like the existence of a country called Timbuctoo, or the number of miles the moon is distant from the earth, but as a personal practical truth. You are born and reared without having ane voice in the matter, it is true, but from the moment you become a walking, talking, sentient animal you can help almost everything you do ; you have the choice of acting rightly or wrongly every minute ; and when you prefer the latter, you are responsible for it, and will some day, in some way or other, suffer for the choice. If a child steals a lump of sugar ho will find it more difficult afterwards to fight against dishonesty; if ho allows passion its head, he will find the beast's mouth harder, and his arm weaker next time ; if he shrinks from peril, his cowardice will increase. When the coroner's inquest brings in a verdict of temporary insanity upon the suicide, wo all say—" Poor fellow! he could not help it." But could he not ? No, not at the time, perhaps, but could he not have helped giving way to that fit of sulks five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago ? And all those increasing outbursts of temper, did ho light them fairly, or strike his colours with greater and greater pusillanimity every time ? "Committed theft has he ? Poor follow !—the most honest man in the world—well off—no necessity for the act—he was not responsible for it—a mere attack of kleptomania ; was there not a time when the temptation to take might have been resisted, ay, and with ease ? The drunkard ! Has a craving, has he, which it is almost impossible to resist ? lied he that always ?—was he born with it ? I tell you, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, he forced himself to drink to excess in the first instance ; his gorge rose at the extra glass, Nature stood up against him and wrestled to prevent his swallowing it ; but he thought intoxication was manly, or ho had imbibed from Anacreontic poetry romantic ideas of the pleasure attached to it, or ho was curious to try a new sensation, and so he wilfully forced himself through the vicious portals, and at that moment at least was responsible for the loss of power to resist the poison when at a later period he was dying of it. "It is a fearful thing to 'Be—every weakness, every failing, every sin of omission as of commission, is our own fault ; we could not help committing it at the moment, perhaps, but wo could have helped committing some other sin years before, and a series of subsequent sins in the interim, which incapacitated us from resisting at the last. Is not the governor who neglects the defence of the outposts responsible for the loss of citadel ? Is not the man who fires the fusee the one who blows up the magazine, what matter whether that fusee smoulder for five minutes, an hour, a month, a year, a decade, a century? And therefore I say that 'William Bathurst was himself in a great measure to blame for the weakness of his character. It is true that ho was born with a yielding disposition ; it is true, also, that an injudicious education had tended to foster rather than discourage the evil ; but nevertheless it is also true that unless he had in thousands of little matters given way when his conscience told him to make a stand which he might have made with ease with a slight amount of trouble and self-denial, from which, however, he wilfully shrank, he would never have fallen into habits of vicious indulgence without a harder struggle against his fate, nor succumbed so speedily and utterly to the influence of a man whose walk in life was not, he well knew, along the paths of virtue." We will dwell no further on the moral purpose so very admirably and effectively carried out in the warning history of " William Bathurst." We may safely commend the book to all our readers, grave or gay, for it is one that cannot fail to interest, and it is one that no one will be the worse for reading. Let not the seeker of amusement he deterred by this grave recommendation. As an evidence of the amusing powers of the writer, let us quote the following delightful description of A