If I fear God it is because I love him, and believe in his love; I cannot conceive myself as standing in fear of any spiritual or human being in whose love I do not entirely believe. Of that Impersonation of Evil, who goes about seeking whom he may devour, the image brings to me no fear, only intense disgust and aversion. Yes, it is because of his love for me that I fear to offend against God; it is because of his love that his displeasure must be terrible. And with regard to human beings, only the being I love has the power to give me pain or inspire me with fear; only those in whose love I believe, have the power to injure me. Take away my love, and you take away my fear: take away _their_ love, and you take away the power to do me any harm which can reach me in the sources of life and feeling. 18. Social opinion is like a sharp knife. There are foolish people who regard it only with terror, and dare not touch or meddle with it. There are more foolish people, who, in rashness or defiance, seize it by the blade, and get cut and mangled for their pains. And there are wise people, who grasp it discreetly and boldly by the handle, and use it to carve out their own purposes. [Illustration] 19. While we were discussing Balzac’s celebrity as a romance writer, she (O. G.) said, with a shudder: “His laurels are steeped in the tears of women,—every truth he tells has been wrung in tortures from some woman’s heart.” [Illustration] 20. Sir Walter Scott, writing in 1831, seems to regard it as a terrible misfortune that the whole burgher class in Scotland should be gradually preparing for representative reform. “I mean,” he says, “the middle and respectable classes: when a borough reform comes, which, perhaps, cannot long be delayed, ministers will no longer return a member for Scotland from the towns.” “The gentry,” he adds, “will abide longer by _sound_ principles, for they are needy, and desire advancement for themselves, and appointments for their sons and so on. But this is a very hollow dependence, and those who sincerely hold ancient opinions are waxing old,” &c. &c. With a great deal more, showing the strange moral confusion which his political bias had caused in his otherwise clear head and honest mind. The sound principles, then, by which educated people are to abide,—over the decay of which he laments,—are such as can only be upheld by the most vulgar self-interest! If a man should utter openly such sentiments in these days, what should we think of him? [Illustration] In the order of absolutism lurk the elements of change and destruction. In the unrest of freedom the spirit of change and progress. [Illustration] 21. “A single life,” said Bacon, “doth well with churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool.”