CHAPTER XIII.

"ACCORDING TO HIS FOLLY."


The hardest task ever set for mortal endeavor is for us to allow other
people to know less than we know.

The failure to perform this task has kindled the fagots about the
stake where heretics perished for obstinacy.

It is not a week, by the way, since I heard a woman, gently nurtured
and intellectual, lament that those "old Pilgrim forefathers were so
disagreeably obstinate." She "wondered that their generation did not
send them to the scaffold instead of across the sea."

Inability to suffer the rest of the world to be mistaken has set a
nation by the ears, broken hearts and fortunes, and separated more
chief friends than all other alienating causes combined. Many
self-deluding souls set down their impatience with others' errors to a
spirit of benevolence. They love their friends too dearly, they have
too sincere a desire for the welfare of acquaintances, to let them
hold mischievous tenets.

The cause of variance may appear contemptible to an indifferent third
party.

To the average reasoner who has no personal concern in the debate, it
may seem immaterial at what date Mrs. Jenkyns paid her last visit to
Boston. She is positive that it was in March, 1889. Mr. Jenkyns is as