"I shouldn't like to kiss you so well if you smoked!"—said he.
"I never had any idea," she ventured after a while, "that it could be—like this."
LOCKED INSIDE
She beats upon her bolted door,
With faint weak hands;
Drearily walks the narrow floor;
Sullenly sits, blank walls before;
Despairing stands.
Life calls her, Duty, Pleasure, Gain—
Her dreams respond;
But the blank daylights wax and wane,
Dull peace, sharp agony, slow pain—
No hope beyond.
Till she comes a thought! She lifts her head,
The world grows wide!
A voice—as if clear words were said—
"Your door, o long imprisoned,
Is locked inside!"
PRIVATE MORALITY AND PUBLIC IMMORALITY
There is more sense in that convenient trick of blaming "the old Adam" for our misbehavior than some of us have thought. That most culpable sinner we no longer see as a white-souled adult baby, living on uncooked food in a newmade garden, but as a husky, hairy, highly carnivorous and bloodthirsty biped, just learning his giant strength, and exercising it like a giant.
Growing self-conscious and intelligent, he developed an ethical sense, and built up system after system of morals, all closely calculated to advance his interests in this world or the next. The morals of the early Hebrews, for instance, with which we are most familiar, were strictly adjusted to their personal profit; their conception of Diety definitely engaging to furnish protection and reward in return for specified virtuous conduct.
This is all reasonable and right in its way. If good conduct were not ultimately advantageous it would not be good. The difficulty with the ancient scheme of morality lies in its narrow range. "The soul that sinneth it shall die," is the definite statement; the individual is the one taken to task, threatened, promised, exhorted and punished. Our whole race-habit of thought on questions of morality is personal. When goodness is considered it is "my" goodness or "your" goodness—not ours; and sins are supposed to be promptly traceable to sinners; visible, catchable, hangable sinners in the flesh. We have no mental machinery capable of grasping the commonest instances of collective sin; large, public continuing sin, to which thousands contribute, for generations upon generations; and under the consequences of which more thousands suffer for succeeding centuries. Yet public evils are what society suffer from most to-day, and must suffer from most in increasing ratio, as years pass.