Mrs. Boyzy remarks that
this is a heartless view of it. But I silence that estimable woman by
the observation that philosophers do not take the heart into account;
the heart is the field of young lovers, physicians' fees and patent
medicines. This observation which she does not understand, and, I may
admit to you I am not so clear about myself, convinces her that I am
not only a philosopher, but a profound one. Ah! to a man of profound
observation, how many better ways of securing the respect of the female
sex there are than the primitive one of clubbing them.
OBSERVATIONS OF A RETIRED VETERAN XI
I do not reverence ministers of the gospel simply because they hold
that office, any more than I esteem a man as a gentleman simply because
he has the manners and dress of one. The bare fact that at some period
in his life, oftenest the period of youth, when the mind teems with
odd fancies and ambitions, a man has concluded that he is called to
the ministry, has successfully gotten through theology and been
ordained, forms too uncertain a foundation on which to base reverence,
which is one of the most solemn emotions of the mind. But I do respect
and reverence the credentials of an earnest, God-fearing and
self-sacrificing life which are found with these men, and I am obliged
in excusing this weakness, to say that in a long and varied experience
with them, these traits have been characteristic of those I have met.
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