My officious countryman, to do him justice, had been candid enough to explain my perfect innocence.
But, somehow or other, there is a want of strong virtue in mankind.
We have plenty of the softer instincts, but the heroic character is gone.

How else can I account for it, that of all my numerous acquaintance, among whom I had the honor of ranking sundry persons of education, talents, and worth, scarcely here and there one or two could be found who had the courage to associate with a man that had been hanged.
Those few who did not desert me altogether were persons of strong but coarse minds; and from the absence of all delicacy in them I suffered almost as much as from the superabundance of a false species of it in the others.

Those who stuck by me were the jokers, who thought themselves entitled by the fidelity which they had shown towards me to use me with what familiarity they pleased.

Many and unfeeling are the jests that I have suffered from these rude (because faithful) Achateses.

As they passed me in the streets, one would nod significantly to his companion and say, pointing to me, Smoke his cravat, and ask me if I had got a wen, that I was so solicitous to cover my neck.