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KING PELLINORE’S LITERARY MAGAZINE

antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name
of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of
consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one
or the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfil
your round of duties by clearing yourself in the direct, or
in the reflex way. Consider whether you have satisfied
your relations to father, mother, cousin, neighbour, town,
cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid you. But I
may also neglect this reflex standard, and absolve me to
myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It
denies the name of duty to many offices that are called
duties. But if I can discharge its debts, it enables me to
dispense with the popular code. If any one imagines that
this law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who
has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has
ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his
heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good
earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple
purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to
others!

If any man consider the present aspects of what is
called by distinction society, he will see the need of these
ethics. The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out,
and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers. We
are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and
afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect
persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life
and our social state, but we see that most natures are
insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an
ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and
do lean and beg day and night continually. Our
housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations,
our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but
society has chosen for us. We are parlour soldiers. We
shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.

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