Shall we send missionaries to the
Bear to warn him against raw chestnuts, because they are sometimes so
discomforting to our human intestines, which are so like his own? One
sermon from the colic were worth the whole American Board.
Moreover, as an author, I protest in the name of universal Grub Street
against a unanimity in goodness. Not to mention that a Quaker world, all
faded out to an autumnal drab, would be a little tedious,--what should
we do for the villain of our tragedy or novel? No rascals, no
literature. You have your choice. Were we weak enough to consent to a
sudden homogeneousness in virtue, many industrious persons would be
thrown out of employment. The wife and mother, for example, with as
indeterminate a number of children as the Martyr Rogers, who visits me
monthly,--what claim would she have upon me, were not her husband
forever taking to drink, or the penitentiary, or Spiritualism? The
pusillanimous lapse of her lord into morality would not only take the
very ground of her invention from under her feet, but would rob her and
him of an income that sustains them both in blissful independence of the
curse of Adam. But do not let us be disheartened.
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