And--though boasting be far
from me!--fetched Liveloose's half-brother out of a certain
charnel-house near by.
"_Thus far_, sir, I went. But I have not yet found the world so barren
of literature as to write a book about it. I have not yet found the
world so barren of ingratitude as to seek happiness by stabbing in the
back every friend I ever had. I have not yet forsaken wife and
children; neighbours and kinsmen; home, ease, and tenderness, for a
whim, a dream, a passing qualm. No, sir; 'tis this Christian's
ignorant hardness-of-heart that is his bane. Knowing little, he
prateth much. He would pinch and contract the Universe to his own
fantastical pattern. He is tedious, he is pragmatical, and--I affirm
it in all sympathy and sorrow--he is crazed. Malice, haply, is a
little sharp at times. And neighbour Obstinate dealeth full weight
with his opinions. But this Christian Flown-to-Glory, as the urchins
say, pinks with a bludgeon. He cannot endure an honest doubt. He
distorteth a mere difference of opinion into a roaring Tophet. And
because he is helpless, solitary, despised in the world; because he is
impotent to refute, and too stubborn to hear and suffer people a
little higher and weightier, a leetle wiser than he--why, beyond the
grave he must set his hope in vengeance.
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