air of a soul that fears it is lost. The fear of hell
has never troubled me. Of sin in the theological sense, the imputed sin
of Adam's transgression, which so worried the old people, I have not had
a moment's concern. That I have given my heart to Nature instead of to
God, as these same old people would have said, has never cast a shadow
over my mind or conscience--as if God would not get all that belonged to
Him, and as if love of his works were not love of Him! I have acquiesced
in things as they are, and have got all the satisfaction out of them
that I could.

Over my personal sins and shortcomings, I have not been as much troubled
as I should; none of us are. We do not see them in relief as others do;
they are like the color of our eyes, or our hair, or the shapes of our
noses.

I do not know that it is true that my moral fibre is actually weak. If
I may draw a figure from geology, it is probably true that my moral
qualities are the softer rock in the strata that make up my being--the
easiest worn away. I see that I carry the instinct of the naturalist
into all my activities. If a thing is natural, sane, wholesome, that is
enough. Whether or not it is conventionally correct, or square with the
popular conception of morality, does not matter to me.

I undoubtedly lack the heroic fibre. My edge is much easier turned than
was that, say, of Thoreau. Austerity would ill become me. You would see
through the disguise. Yes, there is much soft rock in my make-up. Is
that why I shrink from the wear and tear of the world?

The religious storm and upheaval that I used to hear so much of in my
youth is impossible with me. I am liable to deep-seated enthusiasms; but
to nothing like a revolution in my inward life, nothing sudden, nothing
violent. I can't say that there has been any abandonment of my opinions
on important subjects; there has been new growth and evolution, I hope.
The emphasis of life shifts, now here, now there; it is up hill and
down dale, but there is no change of direction.... Certain deep-seated
tendencies and instincts have borne me on. I have gravitated naturally
to the things that were mine.

I could not make anything I chose of myself; I could only be what I am.
In my youth I once "went forward" at a "protracted meeting," but nothing
came of it. The change in me that I was told would happen did not
happen, and I never went again. My nature was too equable, too
self-poised, to be suddenly overturned an