But slight the change , sweet maids , to make angels of yourselves . FANCY 'S SHOW-BOX . A MORALITY . What is guilt ? A stain upon the soul . And it is a point of vast interest whether the soul may contract such stains in all their depth and flagrancy from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon , but which physically have never had existence . Must the fleshly hand and visible frame of man set its seal to the evil designs of the soul , in order to give them their entire validity against the sinner ? Or , while none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly tribunal , will guilty thoughts -- of which guilty deeds are no more than shadows , -- will these draw down the full weight of a condemning sentence in the supreme court of eternity ? In the solitude of a midnight chamber or in a desert afar from men or in a church while the body is kneeling the soul may pollute itself even with those crimes which we are accustomed to deem altogether carnal . If this be true , it is a fearful truth . Let us illustrate the subject by an imaginary example . A venerable gentleman -- one Mr. Smith -- who had long been regarded as a pattern of moral excellence was warming his aged blood with a glass or two of generous wine . His children being gone forth about their worldly business and his grandchildren at school , he sat alone in a deep luxurious arm-chair with his feet beneath a richly-carved mahogany table . Some old people have a dread of solitude , and when better company may not be had rejoice even to hear the quiet breathing of a babe asleep upon the carpet . But Mr. Smith , whose silver hair was the bright symbol of a life unstained except by such spots as are inseparable from human nature -- he had no need of a babe to protect him by its purity , nor of a grown person to stand between him and his own soul . Nevertheless , either manhood must converse with age , or womanhood must soothe him with gentle cares , or infancy must sport around his chair , or his thoughts will stray into the misty region of the past and the old man be chill and sad . Wine will not always cheer him . Such might have been the case with Mr. Smith , when , through the brilliant medium of his glass of old Madeira , he beheld three figures entering the room . These were Fancy , who had assumed the garb and aspect of an itinerant showman , with a box of pictures on her back ; and Memory , in the likeness of a clerk , with a pen behind her ear , an inkhorn at her buttonhole and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm ; and lastly , behind the other two , a person shrouded in a dusky mantle which concealed both face and form . But Mr. Smith had a shrewd idea that it was Conscience .
How kind XXXXX Fancy , Memory and Conscience to visit the old gentleman just as he was beginning to imagine that the wine had neither so bright a sparkle nor so excellent a flavor as when himself and the liquor were less aged !
If as at before beneath of that through to whether