Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/100

 ¬when our world is visited by one of its most malignant and contagious maladies it is alarm- ing only to those who have never had it. — It is a disease only attracted by some morbid matter in almost every human body ; but which, when once dispersed by the lever it excites, can never be excited again. — Wisdom therefore with us has disappointed its tremendous ravages, by raising this fever herself; chusing her own mode and her own time for doing it; safely and mildly reforming the constitution which had formerly perished by a revolution, in all the springs of life. — I cannot dismiss this metaphor (it is indeed too close to the subject to be called one) without applying it to Capetia also. — She, no doubt, caught the infection, as you are pleased to call it, from her contact with Hespe- ria, but she was in a condition only to receive it with confluent inflammation. — Her state was so foul that its foulness could not be extracted Without such a shock, as in the natural body would have been death ; but if her history had been like that of Armata, as you yourself have ¬told ¬