The logic of expediency
and of consequences carried no weight with me, and as little
the logic of self-interest. I sometimes think a child's vision
is clearer, even in worldly matters, than the eyes of those
can be who have lived long among the fumes and vapours which
rise in these low grounds. Unless the eyes be washed day by
day in the spring of truth, and anointed with unearthly
ointment. The right and the wrong, were the two things that
presented themselves to my view; and oh, my sorrow and
heartbreak was, that papa was in the wrong. I could not
believe it, and yet I could not get rid of it. There were
oppressors and oppressed at the world; and he was one of the
oppressors. There is no sorrow that a child can bear, keener
and more gnawingly bitter than this. It has a sting all its
own, for which there is neither salve nor remedy; and it had
the aggravation, in my case, of the sense of personal
dishonour. The wrong done and the oppression inflicted were
not the whole; there was besides the intolerable sense of
living upon other's gains.
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