Secret BreadJesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
General
Secret Bread
Jesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction
"I don't agree with you," said Boase energetically. "The root of all
things good and great is personality. The success of any movement
depends on the individuality of the leader, just as the whole of
creation depends, whether it knows it or not, on the personality of
Christ. 'Be individual' is a counsel of perfection--that is the only
drawback to it. If the great mass of people were only nearer perfection
the rein could be given to individualism; as it is it's a dangerous
horse to drive--it so often runs away with its driver. Conceive now of
the immense advantage it would be if, instead of a criminal being tried
by the clumsy machinery of the law, the judge were to investigate the
case quietly and thoroughly himself, get to know the man, his belongings
and environment, and then deal with him as he saw fit. The thing's not
workable; the judge might have an attack of indigestion that would
jaundice his view, or be in a rosy glow of sentimentality after port.
But if the judge could be depended on for sympathy and intuitiveness,
half the crime in the world would be stamped out. It's the same
everywhere. If priests could be allowed to discriminate between divorced
persons they thought it fit and desirable to remarry and those they did
not, much sin might be avoided. But it wouldn't work, simply because the
individual can't yet be trusted, and so it is quite right that the law
should be as it is. But that doesn't prevent rank individualism from
being the counsel of perfection--in which, curiously enough, Joe would
agree with me more than Ishmael, who fights against the individual in
life to an extraordinary extent. I wish something would happen to make
him succumb to it again. I don't want him to grow inhuman...."
"I wish it were possible to grow inhuman," said Judy.
"If you knew," said Boase slowly, "that besides doing--as I must tell
you--a right action by leaving off all connection with Joe Killigrew,
you could also cease at once to feel anything for him, would you then
leave him?"
"Ah! not yet ..." said Judith. "I must have a little longer. Wait till
I'm older--till I can't make him want me...."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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