The world may say of him."

Milverton. Never mind the obscure dramatist. But, Ellesmere, you
really are unreasonable, if you suppose that, in the limits of a
short essay, you can accurately distinguish all you write between
the use and the abuse of a thing. The question is, will people
misunderstand you--not, is the language such as to be logically
impregnable? Now, in the present case, no man will really suppose
it is a wise and just conformity that I am inveighing against.

Ellesmere. I am not sure of that. If everybody is to have
independent thought, would there not be a fearful instability and
want of compactness? Another thing, too--conformity often saves so
much time and trouble.

Milverton. Yes; it has its uses. I do not mean, in the world of
opinion and morality, that it should be all elasticity and no
gravitation; but at least enough elasticity to preserve natural form
and independent being.

Ellesmere. I think it would have been better if you had turned the
essay another way, and instead of making it on conformity, had made
it on interference. That is the greater mischief and the greater
folly, I think. Why do people unreasonably conform? Because they
feel unreasonable interference. War, I say, is interference on a
small scale compared with the interference of private life. Then
the absurdity on which it proceeds; that men are all alike, or that
it is desirable that they should be; and that what is good for one
is good for all.