Men not only see according to the light they shed from their own breasts,—whether it be the sunshine of generosity or the hell-flames of bad passions,—but they attract to themselves spirits like their own. The very same persons appear very differently to a traveller who calls into exercise all their best qualities, and to one who has an affinity with their worst: but it is a yet more important consideration that actually different elements of society will range themselves round the observer according to the scepticism or faith of his temper, the purity or depravity of his tastes, and the
...more