LUCILLA. Oh! please, sir, ask somebody else.
L. If I thought any one else could answer better than you, Lucilla, I would: but suppose I try, instead, myself, to explain your feelings to you?
LUCILLA. Oh, yes; please do.
L. Mind, I say your "feelings," not your "belief." For I cannot undertake to explain anybody's beliefs. Still I must try a little, first, to explain the belief also, because I want to draw it to some issue. As far as I understand what you say, or any one else, taught as you have been taught, says, on this matter,—you think that there is an external goodness, a whited-sepulcher kind of goodness, which appears beautiful outwardly, but is within full of uncleanness: a deep secret guilt, of which we ourselves are not sensible; and which can only be seen by the Maker of us all. (Approving murmurs from audience.)
L. Is it not so with the body as well as the soul?
(Looked notes of interrogation.)
L. A skull, for instance, is not a beautiful thing? (Grave faces, signifying "Certainly not," and "What next?")
L. And if you all could see in each other, with clear eyes, whatever God sees beneath those fair faces of yours, you would not like it?
(Murmured No's.)
L. Nor would it be good for you?