our letter ... admirably right and just in the
defence of the women I _seemed_ to speak against; and only
seemed--because that is a way of mine which you must have observed;
that foolish concentrating of thought and feeling, for a moment, on
some one little spot of a character or anything else indeed, and in
the attempt to do justice and develop whatever may seem ordinarily to
be overlooked in it,--that over vehement _insisting_ on, and giving an
undue prominence to, the same--which has the effect of taking away
from the importance of the rest of the related objects which, in
truth, are not considered at all ... or they would also rise
proportionally when subjected to the same (that is, correspondingly
magnified and dilated) light and concentrated feeling. So, you
remember, the old divine, preaching on 'small sins,' in his zeal to
expose the tendencies and consequences usually made little account of,
was led to maintain the said small sins to be 'greater than great
ones.' _But then_ ... if you look on the world _altogether_, and
accept the small natures, in their usual proportion with the greater
... things do not look _quite_ so bad; because the conduct which _is_
atrocious in those higher cases, of proposal and acceptance, _may_ be
no more than the claims of the occasion justify (wait and hear) in
certain other cases where the thing sought for and granted is avowedly
less by a million degrees. It shall all be traffic, exchange (counting
spiritual gifts as only coin, for our purpose), but surely the
formalities and policies and decencies all vary with the nature of the
thing trafficked for. If a man makes up his mind during half his life
to acquire a Pitt-diamond or a Pilgrim-pearl--[he] gets witnesses and
testimony and so forth--but, surely, when I pass a shop where oranges
are ticketed up seven for sixpence I offend no law by sparing all
words and putting down the piece with a certain authoritative ring on
the counter. If instead of diamonds you want--(being a king or
queen)--provinces with live men on them ... there is so much more
diplomacy required; new interests are appealed to--high motives
_supposed_, at all events--whereas, when, in Naples, a man asks leave
to black your shoe in the dusty street 'purely for the honour of
serving your Excellency' you laugh and would be sorry to find yourself
without a 'grano' or two--(six of which, about, make a farthing)--Now
do you not see! Where so little is to be got, why of