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I was alone, it is true, but then I had the great counterbalancing advantage of almost entire liberty of action, being allowed to roam about the place at my own sweet will and pleasure, with no lessons to learn, and the only obligation placed on me that of reporting myself regularly at meal-times; when, as the penalty for being late consisted in my having to go without my dinner or tea, as the case might be, and I possessed an unusually sensitive appetite which seldom failed to warn me of the approach of the hour devoted to those refections, even when I was out of earshot of the gong, I earned a well-founded reputation for the most praiseworthy punctuality the lesson I had when I first arrived at the school having given me a wholesome horror of starvation!

It was a dug-out, as ancient and dilapidated as its owner, and, in order to get into it without capsizing, Daughtry wet one leg to the ankle and the other leg to the knee. The old man contorted himself aboard, rolling his body across the gunwale so quickly, that, even while it started to capsize, his weight was across the danger-point and counterbalancing the canoe to its proper equilibrium.

On the other hand, these counterbalancing considerations were adduced, which are as so many props and pillars to support his people, and to allay the difficulties of the duty of entering into covenant with God, and to make it the more light and easy. 1st, That the work is the Lord's, and he is greatly concerned in it; and, therefore, his people may safely lean to him for help, he having enacted no law against it, as men have. 2d, That he looks not upon his people in such undertakings, as in themselves, for then it were impossible for creatures, having the least sinful imperfection in them, to covenant with their spotless Creator, and come so near a jealous God, who is a consuming fire to the workers of iniquity; but he considers his people in their covenanting with him, as in their head, Christ, his eternal Son; whence we may safely say, That our national covenant wants not a Mediator more than the covenant of grace, in this sense, as it is through him we have access to make this covenant with God. 3d, That the Lord has promised his presence to his own work; thus we find through the whole of the covenants made, and renewed by the people of Israel and Judah, that the Lord discovered his gracious presence with them, by some remarkable effect of his goodness.

M'Donough owed his victory in Plattsburg Bay, to having improved so favourable a chance; and the French were beaten at the Nile, because they did not; though Nelson probably would have overcome them, under any circumstances; the energy imparted by one of his character, more than counterbalancing any little advantage in tactics.

The Absentee, for instance, contains admirable dialogue and many life-like figures; but the scheme of the story conveys a sense of unreality. Every fault or vice has its counterbalancing virtue represented. Lady Clonbroney, vulgarly ashamed of her country, is set off by the patriotic Lady Oranmore; the virtuous Mr. Burke forms too obvious a pendant to the rascally agents old Nick and St. Dennis.

I trust, sir, that the present state of things will have that counterbalancing advantage in the midst of many misfortunes and evil consequences."

She seemed now the vignette of a beautiful woman, missing the stateliness, perhaps, too, the distinction, but obtaining by very reason of what she missed a counterbalancing charm, to be appreciated only at close quarters, a charm of the quiet kind, diffused about her like a light; winsome that was the epithet he applied to her, and remained doubtfully content with it, for there was a gravity too.

After death it was found that none of the viscera were wounded, and death was attributed to the fact that the in-rush of air counterbalancing the pressure within the lungs left them to their own contractile force, with resultant collapse, obstruction to the circulation, and death. It is said that Vesalius demonstrated this condition on the thorax of a pig.

The earl, however, although he yielded, maintained that the flying of the wall when struck was a more than counterbalancing danger. The stock of provisions began to increase. The dry larder, which lay under the court, between the kitchen and buttery, was by degrees filled with gammons and flitches of bacon, well dried and smoked.

He fixed his attention so completely on the tendencies to ill that manifested themselves in the social state, that he often became blind to the counterbalancing tendencies to good. Hence his later judgments were frequently one-sided and partial. He too often took up the rôle of prophesying disasters that never came to pass.