Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/200

154 inheritance to be destroyed. But if it were possible for us to be insensible of these sacred claims, there is yet an obligation binding upon ourselves, from which nothing can acquit us,—a personal interest, which we cannot surrender. To alienate even our own rights, would be a crime as much more enormous than suicide, as a life of civil security and freedom is superior to a bare existence; and if life be the bounty of heaven, we scornfully reject the noblest part of the gift, if we consent to surrender that certain rule of living, without which the condition of human nature is not only miserable, but contemptible. JUNIUS.

 

SIR,

MUST beg of you to print a few lines in explanation of some passages in my last letter, which, I see, have been misunderstood. 