We gradually come to look on others with the
distrust which we are conscious of deserving; and are insensibly formed
to sentiments of the most unamiable selfishness and suspicion. It is
needless to say, that all these elaborate artifices are worse than
useless to the person who employs them; and that the ingenious plotter
is almost always baffled and exposed by the downright honesty of some
undesigning competitor. Miss Edgeworth, in her tale of "Manoeuvring,"
has given a very complete and most entertaining representation of "the
by-paths and indirect crooked ways," by which these artful and
inefficient people generally make their way to disappointment. In the
tale, entitled "Madame de Fleury," she has given some useful examples of
the ways in which the rich may most effectually do good to the poor--an
operation which, we really believe, fails more frequently from want of
skill than of inclination: And, in "The Dun," she has drawn a touching
and most impressive picture of the wretchedness which the poor so
frequently suffer, from the unfeeling thoughtlessness which withholds
from them the scanty earnings of their labour.
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