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‘ [213] must not forget my errand. Poor old Widow Osborne needs a watcher to-night; and she insists upon having Julia Barnet, and nobody else. What shall I tell her?’ ‘I'll go, certainly. I can leave Lucy now as well as not.’ ‘Good-by, neighbors.’ ‘Good-by, Doctor.’ As we drove off I saw the Doctor draw his hand hastily across his eyes, and he said nothing for some minutes. ‘Public opinion,’ said he at length, as if pursuing his meditations aloud,— ‘public opinion is, in nine cases out of ten, public folly and impertinence. We are slaves to one another. We dare not take counsel of our consciences and affections, but must needs suffer popular prejudice and custom to decide for us, and at their bidding are sacrificed love and friendship and all the best hopes of our lives. We do not ask, What is right and best for us? but, What will folks say of it? We have no individuality, no self-poised strength, no sense of freedom. We are conscious always of the gaze of the many-eyed tyrant. We propitiate him with precious offerings; we burn incense perpetually to Moloch, and pass through his fire the sacred first-born of our hearts. How few dare to seek their own happiness by the lights which God has given them, or have strength to defy the false pride and the prejudice of the world and stand fast in the liberty of Christians! Can anything be more pitiable than the sight of so many, who should be the choosers and creators under God of ’
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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