matters, so also we have ceased to be ARTIFICIALLY foolish. The
folly which comes by nature, the unwisdom of the immature man, or the
older man caught in a trap, we must put up with that, nor are we much
ashamed of it; but to be conventionally sensitive or sentimental--my
friend, I am old and perhaps disappointed, but at least I think we
have cast off SOME of the follies of the older world."

He paused, as if for some words of mine; but I held my peace: then
he went on: "At least, if we suffer from the tyranny and fickleness
of nature or our own want of experience, we neither grimace about it,
nor lie. If there must be sundering betwixt those who meant never to
sunder, so it must be: but there need be no pretext of unity when
the reality of it is gone: nor do we drive those who well know that
they are incapable of it to profess an undying sentiment which they
cannot really feel: thus it is that as that monstrosity of venal
lust is no longer possible, so also it is no longer needed. Don't
misunderstand me. You did not seemed shocked when I told you that
there were no law-courts to enforce contracts of sentiment or
passion; but so curiously are men made, that perhaps you will be
shocked when I tell you that there is no code of public opinion which
takes the place of such courts, and which might be as tyrannical and
unreasonable as they were. I do not say that people don't judge
their neighbours' conduct, sometimes, doubtless, unfairly. But I do
say that there is no unvarying conventional set of rules by which
people are judged; no bed of Procrustes to stretch or cramp their
minds and lives; no hypocritical excommunication which people are
FORCED to pronounce, either by unconsidered habit, or by the
unexpressed threat of the lesser interdict if they are lax in their
hypocrisy. Are you shocked now?"