I go to a convention of
philanthropists. Do what I can, I cannot keep my eyes off the clock. But
if there should appear in the company some gentle soul who knows little
of persons or parties, of Carolina or Cuba, but who announces a law that
disposes these particulars, and so certifies me of the equity which
checkmates every false player, bankrupts every self-seeker, and apprises
me of my independence on any conditions of country, or time, or human
body, that man liberates me; I forget the clock.
I pass out of the sore relation to persons. I am healed of my hurts.
I am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible
goods. Here is great competition of rich and poor. We live in a market,
where is only so much wheat, or wool, or land; and if I have so much
more, every other must have so much less. I seem to have no good,
without breach of good manners. Nobody is glad in the gladness of
another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority.
Every child of the Saxon race is educated to wish to be first. It is
our system; and a man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets,
envies, and hatreds of his competitors.
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