Prejudice is a tyrant: there is no other tyranny.
Madam!
That is one of my strange opinions. It may be true; I am willing to
think it is. Such things are indifferent to me. Let me but have your
consent, to speak to Sir Arthur, and I have accomplished all I wish. I
do not desire to trouble myself with examining opinions, true or false.
I am determined to be of your opinion, be it what it will.
That is, you avow that the gratification of your desires is the chief
pursuit of your life. We have now found the essential point on which we
differ.
Is not happiness, madam, the universal pursuit? Must it not, ought it
not to be?
Yes. But the grand distinction is between general and individual
happiness. The happiness that centres in the good of the whole may for
the present find momentary interruption, but never can be long
subverted: while that individual happiness, of which almost the whole
world is in pursuit, is continually blundering, mistaking its object,
losing its road, and ending in disappointment.
Then, madam, we must all turn monks, preach self-denial, fast, pray,
scourge away our sins, live groaning, and die grieving.
[I smiled. It is his usual way, when he thinks I am got a little in the
clouds, to draw some humorous or satirical picture, to bring me down to
what he esteems common-sense. But, as I am convinced that truth only
need to be repeated, and insisted on, whenever there is an opportunity,
in order finally to be received, the best way is always to join in the
laugh, which is inoffensive, unless pettishness give it a sting.]
You find yourself obliged at present to consider me as a whimsical
girl, with a certain flow of spirits, and much vanity, desiring to
distinguish herself by singularity?
No, madam, whatever you may think of me, my heart will not endure a
thought to your disadvantage.
Nay, nay, forbear your kind reproaches. Every time you differ with me
in sentiment, you cannot but think something to my disadvantage. It is
so with all of us. The very end of this present explanation is
sincerity. We each think well of the other: but do we think
sufficiently well? Is there a certainty that our thoughts are in no
danger of changing? Of all the actions of private life, there is not
one so solemn as that of vowing perpetual love: yet the heedless levity
with which it is daily performed, proves that there is scarcely one on
which less serious reflection is bestowed. Can we be too careful not to
deceive ourselves? Ought we not minutely to examine our hopes and
expectations? Ought not you and I, in particular, to be circumspect?
Our imaginations are vivid, our feelings strong, our views and desires
not bounded by common rules. In such minds, passions, if not subdued,
become ungovernable, and fatal.