We
prefer trusting to the slender incidents which spring from out our
common intercourse. There is no doubt that that great pumice-stone,
Society, smooths down the edges of your thoughts and manners. Bodies of
men who pursue the same object must ever resemble each other: the life
of the majority must ever be imitation. Thought is a labour to which few
are competent; and truth requires for its development as much courage as
acuteness. So conduct becomes conventional, and opinion is a legend; and
thus all men act and think alike.
But this is not peculiar to what is called fashionable life, it is
peculiar to civilisation, which gives the passions less to work upon.
Mankind are not more heartless because they are clothed in ermine; it is
that their costume attracts us to their characters, and we stare because
we find the prince or the peeress neither a conqueror nor a heroine. The
great majority of human beings in a country like England glides through
existence in perfect ignorance of their natures, so complicated and so
controlling is the machinery of our social life! Few can break the bonds
that tie them down, and struggle for self-knowledge; fewer, when
the talisman is gained, can direct their illuminated energies to the
purposes with which they sympathise.
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