I cling to the past as to something in which
I have deserved well, though I am scarcely satisfied with it. According
to our English notions I know my name. English notions, however, are not
to be accepted in all matters, any more than the flat declaration of a
fact will develop it in alt its bearings. When our English society shall
have advanced to a high civilization, it will be less expansive in
denouncing the higher stupidities. Among us, much of the social judgement
of Bodge upon the relations of men to women is the stereotyped opinion of
the land. There is the dictum here for a man who adores a woman who is
possessed by a husband. If he has long adored her, and known himself to
be preferred by her in innocency of heart; if he has solved the problem
of being her bosom's lord, without basely seeking to degrade her to being
his mistress; the epithets to characterise him in our vernacular will
probably be all the less flattering. Politically we are the most
self-conscious people upon earth, and socially the frankest animals.
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