What would
people, what would my friends, think and say? True, apparently at least,
but, if my life, my character, has such a foundation, a foundation so
weak, so uncertain, so tottering, as to be affected by anything of this
kind, I had better then look well to it, and quietly, quickly, but
securely, begin to rebuild it; and, when I am sure that it is upon the
true, deep, substantial foundation, the only additional thing then
necessary is for me to reach that glorious stage of development which
quickly gets one out of the personal into the universal, or rather that
indicates that he is already out of the one and into the other, when he
can say: They think. What do they think? Let them think. They say. What
do they say? Let them say.
And, then, the supreme charity one should have, when he realizes the
fact that _the great bulk of the sin and error in the world is committed
not through choice, but through ignorance_. Not that the person does not
know many times that this or that course of action is wrong, that it is
wrong to commit this error or sin or crime; but the ignorance comes in
his belief that in this course of conduct he is deriving pleasure and
happiness, and his ignorance of the fact that through a different course
of conduct he would derive a pleasure, a happiness, much keener, higher,
more satisfying and enduring.
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