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Updated: May 26, 2025
The tranquil repose and dignity of these low, solid houses, the broad flagged Promenade, the unmistakable air of old fashion, the sort of reality and self-persuasion that they might in a moment be re-peopled with all these eminent persons much as Boz called up the ghosts of the old mail-coach passengers in his telling ghost story the sombre grey of the walls, the brightness of the windows: these elements join to leave an extraordinary impression.
But this courage was supported and fed solely by the self-persuasion of consummate genius, and his profound confidence both in his good fortune and the inexhaustibility of his resources. Physically he was a coward! immediate peril to be confronted by the person, not the mind, had ever appalled him like a child. He had never dared to back a spirited horse.
A few here and there wore the red eglantine in their buttonholes: they looked quite inoffensive: they were revolutionaries by dint of self-persuasion: they were obviously quite benevolent and optimistic at heart, well satisfied with the smallest opportunities for happiness: whether it were fine or merely passable for their holiday, they were grateful for it ... they did not know exactly to whom ... to everything and everybody about them.
Yet his vanity demanded more. It was not long before he assumed the dress, the habits, and the behaviour of a sovereign and appeared in public with the emblems of empire. He felt that he was no longer in spirit the Knight of the Holy Ghost, and he required for self-persuasion the conference of the outward honours of knighthood.
By much argument and self-persuasion I prevailed upon myself to climb the fence, and with a sort of despairing doggedness to let myself down on the inside. Just then the clouds thickened over the face of the moon, and the light faded rapidly. To get down inside the fence with that thing was, for a moment, simply sickening, and my eyes dilated with the intensity of my stare.
It might be that the growth of intimacy, of mutual knowledge, would make his love for her a more real motive in his life. He would endeavour that it should be so. Yet there remained that fatal conviction of the unreality of every self-persuasion save in relation to the influences of the moment.
"As much promised the duke that he would do, if in case that she would not remove her French at a reasonable day . . . " the duke being especially interested in their removal. Thus Knox or Kirkcaldy, or both, by letter; and Knox later, orally in conversation with Croft, could announce false terms of treaty. So great, if I am right, is a good man's power of self-persuasion!
To Cousin Elizabeth the alliance was a love match; had she possessed the other qualities, her self-persuasion would have been enough to enable her to found a religious sect and believe that she was sent from heaven for its prophet.
Much may be urged in favour of the divorce from a political point of view, and no doubt Henry had a powerful faculty of self-persuasion such men can grow to believe that whatever they desire is right, that "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."
But a man's self-persuasion cannot alter such laws nor can human laws confirm or nullify them, nor can a great religion do more than admit their truth, basing its creed upon such laws. . . . No man can put asunder, no laws of man undo the burden. . . . And, to my shame and disgrace, I have had to relearn this after offering you a love I had no right to offer a life which is not my own to give."
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