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You shall come to London, that huge mass of matter for thought and observation, and to me, in whom you find so interesting an epitome of all the moods, tenses, and conjugations of every regular and irregular form of "to do, to be, and to suffer;" and when you have been sufficiently smoked, fogged, astonished, and edified, you shall return home with one infallible result of your stay with us increased value for a peaceful life, quiet companions, a wide sea-view, and potatoes roasted in their skins; not but what you shall have the last-mentioned luxury here, if you will but come.
I was thus actuated, without doubt, in my relations years since with Helena Emory I knew the shrewdness and accuracy of my own trained mind. I confess I exulted in the infallible, relentless logic of my mind, a mind able and well trained, especially well trained in reason and argument.
Tradition, perhaps often more faithful than written documents, is a sure and almost infallible guide in the minds of the people where there has been no complicated variety of historic incidents to confuse and break the chain of memory; where their rare revolutions have consisted of an eruption once in a thousand years into the cultivated world; where society has never been broken up, but their domestic manners have remained the same; where, too, they revere truth, and are rigid in its oral delivery, since that is their only means of disseminating knowledge.
You have reiterated to-day, in no uncertain terms, doctrines which I once believed, which I was brought up to think infallible. But I have lived since then, and life itself has made me doubt them. "I recognize in you a humanity, a sympathy and breadth which you are yourself probably not aware of, all of which is greater than the rule which you so confidently apply to fit all cases.
The differing scents of these three flowers hidden in the night had been breathed out to him. With infallible certainty he had recognized each one, differentiated the one from the other. And as the scent of one flower had failed, the scent of another had risen upon him, until he had known the heart of each of the three. Then for a while was the night scentless, silent, blank, empty.
Emphatically not. Why not? Because, if that theory were well founded, then every priest and Bishop would believe and teach precisely the same set of doctrines, without any need of an infallible Pope to guide him. For, clearly, the Spirit of Truth could not whisper "yea" to one, and "nay" to another, nor could He declare a thing to be "black" to one person and "white" to his neighbour.
Lard, melted and cooled five or six times in succession, by being poured each time into a fresh pail-full of water, then simmered with sliced onions, and cooled, is said, by old nurses, to make a salve, which is almost infallible in curing inflammations produced by taking cold in wounds.
What are you to do about the inner life? Why, for lack of reality, you shall take a sham: you shall hatch up some formula of words; or better still, take the formula already hatched that comes handiest; call it your creed or confession of faith; fix your belief on that, as supreme and infallible, the sure and certain key to the mysteries within and around you; then you may cease to think of those mysteries altogether; the word-formula will be enough; it is that, not thought, not action, that saves.
Their agreeing in a name, or sound, will scarce prove an innate notion of him. Gross ideas of God. What true or tolerable notion of a Deity could they have, who acknowledged and worshipped hundreds? Every deity that they owned above one was an infallible evidence of their ignorance of Him, and a proof that they had no true notion of God, where unity, infinity, and eternity were excluded.
"Uncle," he asked, "will it make things worse if I talk to you?" "No, Dick." Nothing made a difference, it seemed. Silence or words must simply fall without effect on the rock bottom of despair. The young man halted, as if dismayed, before this overpowering inertia of hopelessness; he drew a quick breath. "A coroner's jury isn't infallible.
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