LUCILLA. Yes, when the sorrow is worth anything.
L. Even if it be not, it cannot be anywhere else but there. It is
not the crystalline lens of your eyes which is sorry, when you
cry?
LUCILLA. No, sir, of course.
L. Then, have you two hearts; one of which is wicked, and the
other grieved? or is one side of it sorry for the other side?
LUCILLA. (weary of cross-examination, and a little vexed). Indeed,
sir, you know I can't understand it; but you know how it is
written--"another law in my members, warring against the law of my
mind."
L. Yes, Lucilla, I know how it is written; but I do not see that
it will help us to know that, if we neither understand what is
written, nor feel it. And you will not get nearer to the meaning
of one verse, if, as soon as you are puzzled by it, you escape to
another, introducing three new words--"law," "members," and
"mind"; not one of which you at present know the meaning of; and
respecting which, you probably never will be much wiser; since men
like Montesquieu and Locke have spent great part of their lives in
endeavoring to explain two of them.
LUCILLA. Oh! please, sir, ask somebody else.
L. If I thought any one else could answer better than you,
Lucilla, I would: but suppose I try, instead, myself, to explain
your feelings to you?
LUCILLA. Oh, yes; please do.
L. Mind, I say your "feelings," not your "belief." For I cannot
undertake to explain anybody's beliefs. Still I must try a little,
first, to explain the belief also, because I want to draw it to
some issue. As far as I understand what you say, or any one else,
taught as you have been taught, says, on this matter,--you think
that there is an external goodness, a whited-sepulcher kind of
goodness, which appears beautiful outwardly, but is within full of
uncleanness: a deep secret guilt, of which we ourselves are not
sensible; and which can only be seen by the Maker of us all.
(Approving murmurs from audience.)