Hor. Strictly speaking you are in the right, it is unanswerable; but who will consider things in that light?
Cleo. All good Christians.
Hor. Where are they then? For all mankind in general would despise and laugh at a man, who should move those scruples. I have heard and seen clergymen themselves in company show their contempt of poltrons, whatever they might talk or recommend in the pulpit. Entirely to quit the world, and at once to renounce the conversation of all persons that are valuable in it, is a terrible thing to resolve upon. Would you become a town and table-talk? Could you submit to be the jest and scorn of public-houses, stage-coaches, and market-places? Is not this the certain fate of a man, who should refuse to fight, or bear an affront without resentment? be just, Cleomenes; is it to be avoided? Must he not be made a common laughing-stock, be pointed at in the streets, and serve for diversion to the very children; to link-boys and hackney-coachmen? Is it a thought to be born with patience?
Cleo. How come you now to have such an anxious regard for what may be the opinion of the vulgar, whom at other times you so heartily despise?
Hor. All this is reasoning, and you know the thing will not bear it: how can you be so cruel?
Cleo. How can you be so backward in discovering and owning the passion, that is so conspicuously the occasion of all this, the palpable and only cause of the uneasiness we feel at the thoughts of being despised?
Hor. I am not sensible of any; and I declare to you, that I feel nothing that moves me to speak as I do, but the sense and principle of honour within me.
Cleo. Do you think that the lowest of the mob, and the scum of the people, are possessed of any part of this principle?
Hor. No, indeed.
Cleo. Or that among the highest quality, infants can be affected with it before they are two years old?