For my own part, I count it a great deal
better philosophy to fuse it, and rarefy it, so that it shall spread out
into every crevice of a story, and give a color and a taste, as it were,
to the whole mass.
I know there are very good people, who, if they cannot lay their finger
on so much doctrine set down in old-fashioned phrase, will never get an
inkling of it at all. With such people, goodness is a thing of
understanding, more than of feeling, and all their morality has its
action in the brain.
God forbid that I should sneer at this terrible infirmity, which
Providence has seen fit to inflict; God forbid too, that I should not be
grateful to the same kind Providence for bestowing upon others among
his creatures a more genial apprehension of true goodness, and a hearty
sympathy with every shade of human kindness.
But in all this I am not making out a case for my own correct teaching,
or insinuating the propriety of my tone. I shall leave the book, in this
regard, to speak for itself; and whoever feels himself growing worse for
the reading, I advise to lay it down. It will be very harmless on the
shelf, however it may be in the hand.
I shall lay no claim to the title of moralist, teacher, or romancist: my
thoughts start pleasant pictures to my mind; and in a garrulous humor I
put my finger in the button-hole of my indulgent friend, and tell him
some of them,--giving him leave to quit me whenever he chooses.
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