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The fear had risen within her, that he himself might be inclined to the free-thinking opinions of his rival. So great was her love to her church, that she had resolved, rather to sacrifice her dear betrothed than to live in the proximity of persuasions, which she considered as utterly profane.
One amusing reminiscence is the odd paradox of Théophile Gautier, that plants are unwholesome absorbents of vital air, and that for him the ideal of a garden would be a succession of asphaltum paths, with fine-cushioned seats, and narghiles for ever burning in the guise of flowers and shrubbery. A retort of Sainte-Betive's shows the sincerity of his free-thinking opinions.
He cannot quite make up his mind to follow evolution to its logical conclusions. Where he is forced to do so, it is to him like signing the death warrant of his dearest friend. It must not be forgotten that Owen was born more than twenty years before Huxley; and great as was the offence of free-thinking in Huxley's youth, it was nothing short of anathema in Owen's.
He received us with more than politeness with courtesy; and I could not help glancing at Miss Oldcastle to see what impression this family of "low, free-thinking republicans" made upon her. It was easy to discover that the impression was of favourable surprise. But I was as much surprised at her behaviour as she was at theirs.
Gay, free-thinking, prankish with a tendency to late-houred habits that must have often scandalized his landlady and a talent for conversation rare amongst artists, who, as a rule, express their thoughts better by their brushes than by word of mouth; kind-hearted, sociable, never behind in passing the bottle no wonder he gathered round him a group of eminent men of his day, most of them with attributes much like his own, who did not flinch from strong outspeaking, who were not shocked by many things.
By this may be seen how greatly christianity suffers by the unhappy divisions among the professors of it: much it is to be wished, though little to be hoped, that both sides would be prevailed upon to recede a little from their present stiffness in opinion, or be at least less virulent in maintaining it; since each, by endeavouring to expose and confute what they look upon as an absurdity in the other, join in contributing to render the truth of the whole suspected, and not only give a handle to the avowed enemies, of depreciating and ridiculing all the sacred mysteries of religion, but also stagger the faith of a great many well-meaning people, and afford but a too plausible pretence for that sceptism which goes by the name of free-thinking, and is of late so much the fashion.
But as there is no society possible without regulation, without control, without limitations on individual liberty, above all without moral limitations, the peoples which are legally the freest do well to take their religious consciousness for check and ballast. In mixed states, Catholic or free-thinking, the limit of action, being a merely penal one, invites incessant contravention.
Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from the first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it; that our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned.
You see that I cannot bear to think of you hunting and ballet-dancing when you are "fair, fat and forty-five." Do prepare yourself for that awful age. I went to see Mrs. H. Ward the other day: she insists on doing battle with the reviewer in the Quarterly, and is thinking of another novel, of which the subject will be the free-thinking of honest working-men in Paris and elsewhere.
He had entered upon the most unprofitable line of business that he could have chosen in the England of those days, the trade in philosophic free-thinking literature of the highest class. The number of buyers was, of course, exceedingly limited, both by the thoughtful character of the works published, and by the unpopularity of the opinions expressed in them.
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