—And year after year—by jings, that’ll do!—
—And year after year; they and their wives, and their little ones—
And their flocks and their herds, and their man-servants and their maid-servants, whispered the lawyer.
Do be quiet, will you.—They pursue me however, not because of their veneration or their love, but only that they may study the perpetual changes of my countenance and hear the language of one to whom all changes and all languages are alike, and all beneath regard. They follow me too, not because they are able to interpret the look of my eyes, or to understand the meaning of my voice, but chiefly because they hear that I have been abroad in the furthermost countries of all the earth, because they are told by grave men, who catch their breath when they speak of me, though it be in the House of the Lord, as you have seen this very day, that I have been familiar with mysterious trial and savage adventure, up from the hour of my birth, when I was dropped in the wilderness like the young of the wild-beast, by my own mother—
I say—Brother B.—I say though—whispered the lawyer, in much perplexity—I say though—what are you at now? You are not on trial—are you?
Yes—yes—let me alone, I beseech you....
Fire away ... fire away ... you’ve got possession of the jury, and that’s half the battle ... fire away.
Peace ... peace, I pray you ... Judges! whenever I go abroad ... wherever I go ... the first place into which I set my foot, is the tribunal of death. Go where I may, I go first in search of the courts ... the courts of justice, I should say, to distinguish them from all other courts—
Good!—
—And I go thither because I have an idea that nations are to be compared with nations, not in every thing—not altogether, but only in a few things; and because after much thought, I have persuaded myself that matters of religion, politics and morals, are inadequate for the chief purposes of such comparison—the comparison of people with people, though not for the comparison of individual with individual perhaps; and that a variety of matters which regard the administration of law, in cases affecting either life or liberty, are in their very nature adequate, and may be conclusive. We may compare court with court and law with law; but how shall we compare opinion with opinion, where there is no unchangeable record of either? goodness with goodness—where goodness itself may be but a thing of opinion or hearsay, incapable of proof, and therefore incapable of comparison?