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"It becomes you ill, that are a restless man and a runagate, to doubt my justice or the King my father's, that are sedentary folk and known in the land." "Nay," said the elder brother; "you have all else, have patience also, and suffer me to say the world is full of touchstones, and it appears not easily which is true." "I have no shame of mine," said the younger brother.
It was by their developed thought-force that they drew the whole world to themselves. The positive thinker generates a force that draws all such as are negative to him. Nearly the whole world was negative to these Masters and hence felt attracted to them. These were the human touchstones.
We all laughed at this reply, and Monsieur D'A, rising to depart, said, "Well, well, milord, your countrymen are great generalizers in philosophy; they reduce human actions to two grand touchstones. All hilarity, they consider the sign of a shallow mind; and all kindness, the token of a false heart." Quis sapiens bono Confidat fragili. Seneca. Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice lis est.
"How if this poor pebble be the touchstone, after all?" said he: and he got down from his horse and emptied forth his wallet by the side of the way. Now, in the light of each other, all the touchstones lost their hue and fire, and withered like stars at morning; but in the light of the pebble, their beauty remained, only the pebble was the most bright. And the elder son smote upon his brow.
Not many years ago no really refined gentlewoman would have worn pinchbeck. False jewelry and imitation lace were touchstones with the sex, and the woman who would condescend to either was assumed, perhaps not quite without reason, to have lost something more than the mere perception of technical taste.
Upon the discussions during the pendency of the resolutions, and upon the vote, by which they were carried, I make no comment, save only to record my exultation in the fact there exhibited, that great emergencies are true touchstones, and that henceforward, until this question is settled, whoever holds a seat in Congress will find upon, and all around him, a pressure strong enough to TEST him a focal blaze that will find its way through the carefully adjusted cloak of fair pretension, and the sevenfold brass of two-faced political intrigue, and no-faced non-committalism, piercing to the dividing asunder of joints and marrow.
The surmounting of morality, in a certain sense even the self-mounting of morality let that be the name for the long-secret labour which has been reserved for the most refined, the most upright, and also the most wicked consciences of today, as the living touchstones of the soul.
If the ladies whom gallant gentlemen delight to serve could guess what secret touchstones of worth these same gentlemen sometimes carry into the adored presence, many a handsome head would be carried with less assurance, and many a fond exaction less confidently imposed.
We all laughed at this reply, and Monsieur D'A , rising to depart, said, "Well, well, milord, your countrymen are great generalizers in philosophy; they reduce human actions to two grand touchstones. All hilarity, they consider the sign of a shallow mind; and all kindness, the token of a false heart." Quis sapiens bono Confidat fragili. Seneca. Grammatici certant et adhuc sub judice lis est.
There is no harm here, but the harm comes, and the odium also, and justly, when an aristocratic government degenerates into an oligarchy of privilege without responsibility, and when socially it is not "superiority in character or quality" but political cunning, opulence and sycophancy that are the touchstones to recognition and acceptance.
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