THE morning of the 10th of September, I took leave of the excellent
commissary, and set out. We had only been acquainted with each other for
about a month, and yet he was as friendly as if he had known me for
years. His noble and upright mind was above all artifice, or desire of
penetrating the opinions of others, not from any want of intelligence,
but a love of that dignified simplicity which animates all honest men.
It sometimes happened during our journey that I was accosted by some one
or other when unobserved, in places where we stopped. “Take care of that
_angel keeper_ of yours; if he did not belong to those _neri_ (blacks),
they would not have put him over you.”
“There you are deceived,” said I; “I have the greatest reason to believe
that you are deceived.”
“The most cunning,” was the reply, “can always contrive to appear the
most simple.”
“If it were so, we ought never to give credit to the least goodness in
any one.”
“Yes, there are certain social stations,” he replied, “in which men’s
manners may appear to great advantage by means of education; but as to
virtue, they have none of it.”
I could only answer, “You exaggerate, sir, you exaggerate.”
“I am only consistent,” he insisted. We were here interrupted, and I
called to mind the _cave a censequentariis_ of Leibnitz.
Too many are inclined to adopt this false and terrible doctrine. I
follow the standard A, that is JUSTICE. Another follows standard B; it
must therefore be that of INJUSTICE, and, consequently, he must be a
villain!
Give _me_ none of your logical madness; whatever standard you adopt, do
not reason so inhumanly. Consider, that by assuming what data you
please, and proceeding with the most violent stretch of rigour from one
consequence to another, it is easy for any one to come to the conclusion
that, “Beyond we four, all the rest of the world deserve to be burnt
alive.” And if we are at the pains of investigating a little further, we
shall find each of the four crying out, “All deserve to be burnt alive
together, with the exception of I myself.”
This vulgar tenet of exclusiveness is in the highest degree
unphilosophical. A moderate degree of suspicion is wise, but when urged
to the extreme, it is the opposite.
After the hint thus thrown out to me respecting that _angelo custode_, I
turned to study him with greater attention than I had before done; and
each day served to convince me more and more of his friendly and generous
nature.
When an order of society, more or less perfect, has been established,
whether for better or worse, all the social offices, not pronounced by
general consent to be infamous, all that are adapted to promote the
public good, and the confidence of a respectable number, and which are
filled by men acknowledged to be of upright mind, such offices may
undeniably be undertaken by honest men without incurring any charge of
unconscientiousness.
I have read of a Quaker who had a great horror of soldiers. He one day
saw a soldier throw himself into the Thames, and save the life of a
fellow-being who was drowning. “I don’t care,” he exclaimed, “I will
still be a Quaker, but there are some good fellows, even among soldiers.”