No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but
names very readily transferable to that or this;[168] the only right
is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A
man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if
everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think
how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and
dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and
sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and
speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat
of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this
bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from
Barbadoes,[169] why should I not say to him: "Go love thy infant; love
thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and modest: have that grace; and
never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible
tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is
spite at home." Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth
is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have
some edge to it,--else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be
preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules
and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my
genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post,
_Whim_.[170] I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we
cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I
seek or why I exclude company. Then, again, do not tell me, as a good
man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good
situations. Are they _my_ poor? I tell thee, thou foolish
philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give
to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There
is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought
and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your