A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

A WORD TO THE PUBLIC. vii
duce me to stain my fingers with ink during my
absence, yet, no sooner was I on the move than I
found the cacoethes scribendi creeping upon me
and, unable long to resist the contagion, I began
most vehemently to deface all the blank paper
within my reach, and one morning detected my-
self terminating a long letter, addressed to no
particular person, and certainly not destined for
the post-office.
I was, of course, very properly ashamed at thus
finding myself out breaking faith with — myself
but I soon capitulated with my conscience ; for,
after a little of that feminine special pleading
which so often "makes the worse appear the
better reason," I began to discover not only " des
cirConstances atUnuantes'' for my delinquency, but
even laudable motives ; and I came out of court,
where I had been judge, jury, plaintiff, and de-
fendant, fully acquitted. To set forth the argu-
ments tliat passed on all sides would be far too
lengthy an undertaking for the limits of a pre-
face ; but the summing-up of the case was this
that as post-office regulations restricted my cor-
respondence with my family to monthly commu-
nications, which could not by any possibility con-
tain a hundredth part of what I was daily seeing,
and that, as I should even soon be removed be-
: ;