What a fortune lost! It is part of the
fatality for the man not to know it, at least in time. Even villany
would have put him into his proper place, but for that film over the
mental vision. "If rogues," said Franklin, "knew the advantages
attached to the practice of the virtues, they would become honest men
from mere roguery."
Many of the faces of this Rogues' Gallery are very well worth
consideration. Of a dozen leading pickpockets, who work singly, or two
or three together, and are mostly English, what is first noted is not
favorable to English teaching or probity;--their position sits easily
upon them. There is not one that gives indication of his having passed
through any mental struggle before he sat down in life as a thief.
Though all men capable of thought, they have not thought very deeply
upon this point. One of them is a natural aristocrat,--a man who could
keep the crowd aloof by simple volition, and without offense; nothing
whatever harsh in him,--polite to all, and amiable to a fault with his
fellows.
There would be style in everything he did or said. He is one to
astonish drawing-rooms and bewilder promenades by the taste and
elegance of his dress.
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