When this explanation was entered into, if explanation it may be called, the two friends looked at one another like a couple of fools, or perhaps to speak more properly, like a couple of knaves. The Right. Hon. the Earl of Trimmerstone was so exceedingly out of humor with himself, that he scarcely knew how to act or what to say. He was going to say, “Sloper, I can never trust you again.” But upon second thoughts he considered that Sloper was really no worse than he had previously known him to be. He was tempted to call Sloper a knave; but he recollected that he himself was as great a knave. He was tempted to think that he would discontinue all intimacy with a man who had thus, as he called it, defrauded him; but he recollected that Singleton Sloper had been serviceable to him, and might be again; and he thought it better to depend on a rogue that he did know, than to run the risk of relying on a rogue that he did not know.
It might not be at this juncture that his lordship’s character received the deepest stain of degradation; but it was at this period, and by this circumstance, that his lordship was brought to feel how very low he had sunk in the scale of moral worth. Then did he again and more deeply than ever regret that the days of his independence were passed away, and that he had sacrificed for the sake of honors which were no honor to him, that composure of mind and that independence of spirit which had in early life been his portion and blessing. He became very low-spirited, and almost morose. His appetite for pleasure was greatly abated. He no longer considered the turf and the betting-table the true and supreme enjoyment of life, or the dignified enjoyment of rank and fortune.
Many days passed away in a state of nervous depression bordering on insanity; and had he in this period laid violent hands on himself, there would have been quite sufficient evidence to convince a coroner’s jury that a verdict of insanity should be brought in.
Coroner’s juries have a very ingenious mode of reasoning on this subject. Thus may the argument be stated: If a poor, pennyless, friendless outcast of society, broken down by calamity, and having no resource whereby to mend his fortunes, or to better his condition, does through an absolute weariness of life lay hands on himself, and thus commit the sin of suicide, he acts from an apparently sufficient motive; and he could not have been insane, inasmuch as it is considered that no man in his senses could desire the continuance of such a life. But if a person of rank or fortune who may live sumptuously every day, or any one even in actual and personal distress from reduced circumstances, but yet having friends or relatives by whose wealth his poverty may be relieved, and at whose table he may, if he pleases, yet enjoy life’s luxuries, should, notwithstanding all that he does or may possess or enjoy, destroy himself, surely he must be insane: for who but a madman would throw away a life which could possibly be enjoyed? This is an invariable and infallible rule.