_Milverton_. Of course one may err, Ellesmere, in too much aphorising as in too much of anything. But your argument goes against all expression of opinion, which must be incomplete, especially when dealing with matters that cannot be circumscribed by exact definitions. Otherwise, a code of wisdom might be made which the fool might apply as well as the wisest man. Even the best proverb, though often the expression of the widest experience in the choicest language, can be thoroughly misapplied. It cannot embrace the whole of the subject, and apply in all cases like a mathematical formula. Its wisdom lies in the ear of the hearer.
_Ellesmere_. Well, I not know that there is anything more to say about the essay. I suppose you are aware, Dunsford, that Milverton does not intend to give us any more essays for some time. He is distressing his mind about some facts which he wants to ascertain before he will read any more to us. I imagine we are to have something historical next.
_Milverton_. Something in which historical records are useful.
_Ellesmere_. Really it is wonderful to see how beautifully human nature accommodates itself to anything, even to the listening to essays. I shall miss them.
_Milverton_. You may miss the talk before and after.
_Ellesmere_. Well, there is no knowing how much of that is provoked (provoked is a good word, is it not?) by the essays.
_Dunsford_. Then, for the present, we have come to an end of our readings.
_Milverton_. Yes, but I trust at no distant time to have something more to try your critical powers and patience upon. I hope that that old tower will yet see us meet together here on many a sunny day, discussing various things in friendly council.
Printed by Cassell and Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C. 12—391
{ 42} The passage which must have been alluded to is this: “The stricter tenets of Calvinism, which allow no medium between grace and reprobation, and doom man to eternal punishment for every breach of the moral law, as an equal offence against Infinite truth and justice, proceed (like the paradoxical doctrine of the Stoics), from taking a half-view of this subject, and considering man as amenable only to the dictates of his understanding and his conscience, and not excusable from the temptations and frailty of human ignorance and passion. The mixing up of religion and morality together, or the making us accountable for every word, thought, or action, under no less a responsibility than our everlasting future welfare or misery, has also added incalculably to the difficulties of self-knowledge, has superinduced a violent and spurious state of feeling, and made it almost impossible to distinguish the boundaries between the true and false, in judging of human conduct and motives. A religious man is afraid of looking into the state of his soul, lest at the same time he should reveal it to heaven; and tries to persuade himself that by shutting his eyes to his true character and feelings, they will remain a profound secret, both here and hereafter.”