t, we say, does this scepticism lead? It leads
a man to a shameful loneliness and selfishness, so to speak--the more
shameful, because it is so good-humoured and conscienceless and serene.
Conscience! What is conscience? Why accept remorse? What is public or
private faith? Mythuses alike enveloped in enormous tradition. If seeing
and acknowledging the lies of the world, Arthur, as see them you can
with only too fatal a clearness, you submit to them without any protest
further than a laugh: if, plunged yourself in easy sensuality, you allow
the whole wretched world to pass groaning by you unmoved: if the fight
for the truth is taking place, and all men of honour are on the ground
armed on the one side or the other, and you alone are to lie on your
balcony and smoke your pipe out of the noise and the danger, you had
better have died, or never have been at all, than such a sensual coward.

"The truth, friend!" Arthur said, imperturbably; "where is the truth?
Show it me. That is the question between us. I see it on both sides. I
see it on the Conservative side of the house, and amongst the Radicals,
and even on the ministerial benches. I see it in this man, who worships
by Act of Parliament, and is rewarded with a silk apron and five
thousand a year; in that man, who, driven fatally by the remorseless
logic of his creed, gives up everything, friends, fame, dearest ties,
closest vanities, the respect of an army of churchmen, the recognised
position of a leader, and passes over, truth-impelled, to the enemy, in
whose ranks he will serve henceforth as a nameless private soldier:--I
see the truth in that man, as I do in his brother, whose logic drives
him to quite a different conclusion, and who, after having passed a life
in vain endeavours to reconcile an irreconcilable book, flings it at
last down in despair, and declares, with tearful eyes, and hands up to
heaven, his revolt and recantation. If the truth is with all these, why
should I take side with any one of them? Some are called upon to
preach: let them preach. Of these preachers there are somewhat too many,
methinks, who fancy they have the gift. But we cannot all be parsons in
church, that is clear. Some must sit silent and listen, or go to sleep
mayhap. Have we not all our duties? The head charity-boy blows the
bellows; the master canes the other boys in the organ-loft; the clerk
sings out Amen from the desk; and the beadle with the staff opens the
door for his Revere