are-finder."--Much ADO,
Act I., Sc. 1.
The hare, in Germany, is considered an emblem of abject submission
and cowardice. The word may also be rendered "Simpleton,"
"Sawney," or any other of the numerous epithets which imply a soft
condition.]

Then courage, and onward, Francis. The man who fears nothing is as
powerful as he who is feared by everybody. It is now the mode to wear
buckles on your smallclothes, that you may loosen or tighten them at
pleasure. I will be measured for a conscience after the newest fashion,
one that will stretch handsomely as occasion may require. Am I to
blame? It is the tailor's affair? I have heard a great deal of twaddle
about the so-called ties of blood--enough to make a sober man beside
himself. He is your brother, they say; which interpreted, means that he
was manufactured in the same mould, and for that reason he must needs be
sacred in your eyes! To what absurd conclusions must this notion of a
sympathy of souls, derived from the propinquity of bodies, inevitably
tend? A common source of being is to produce community of sentiment;
identity of matter, identity of impulse! Then again,--he is thy father!
He gave thee life, thou art his flesh and blood--and therefore he must
be sacred to thee! Again a most inconsequential deduction! I should
like to know why he begot me;** certainly not out of love for me--for I
must first have existed!

**[The reader of Sterne will remember a very similar passage in the
first chapter of Tristram Shandy.]

Could he know me before I had being, or did he think of me during my
begetting? or did he wish for me at the moment? Did he know what I
should be? If so I would not advise him to acknowledge it or I should
pay him off for his feat. Am I to be thankful to him that I am a man?
As little as I should have had a right to blame him if he had made me a
woman. Can I acknowledge an affection which is not based on any
personal regard? Could personal regard be present before the existence
of its object? In what, then, consists the sacredness of paternity?
Is it in the act itself out of which existence arose? as though this
were aught else than an animal process to appease animal desires. Or
does it lie, perhaps, in the result of this act, which is nothing more
after all than one of iron necessity, and which men would gladly
dispense with, were it not at the cost of flesh and blood? Do I then
owe him thanks for his affection? Why, what is it