It is
a very strange law, but it IS a law. Nature merely sees to the
carrying out of the normal operation of arsenic. She never
troubles herself to ask who gave it you. So also you may be
starved to death, morally as well as physically, by other people's
faults. You are, on the whole, very good children sitting here to-
day; do you think that your goodness comes all by your own
contriving? or that you are gentle and kind because your
dispositions are naturally more angelic than those of the poor
girls who are playing, with wild eyes, on the dust-heaps in the
alleys of our great towns; and who will one day fill their
prisons,--or, better, their graves? Heaven only knows where they,
and we who have cast them there shall stand at last But the main
judgment question will be, I suppose, for all of us, "Did you keep
a good heart through it? What you were, others may answer for,--
what you tried to be, you must answer for yourself. Was the heart
pure and true--tell us that?
And so we come back to your sorrowful question, Lucilla, which I
put aside a little ago. You would be afraid to answer that your
heart WAS pure and true, would not you?
LUCILLA. Yes, indeed, sir.
L. Because you have been taught that it is all evil--"only evil
continually.
Pages:
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95