Innocence
is the sweetest thing in the world, and there is more of it than folks
generally imagine. If you want some to transplant, don't seek it in
the enclosures of cant, for it has only counterfeit ones, but go to
the gardens of truth and of sense. Co?rced innocence is like an
imprisoned lark, open the door and it's off for ever. The bird that
roams through the sky and the groves unrestrained knows how to dodge
the hawk and protect itself, but the caged one, the moment it leaves
its bars and bolts behind, is pounced upon by the fowler or the
vulture.
"Puritans, whether in or out of the church (for there is a whole squad
of 'em in it, like rats in a house who eat up its bread and undermine
its walls), make more sinners than they save by a long chalk. They
ain't content with real sin, the pattern ain't sufficient for a cloak,
so they sew on several breadths of artificial offences, and that makes
one big enough to wrap round them, and cover their own deformity. It
enlarges the margin, and the book, and gives more texts.
"Their eyes are like the great magnifier at the Polytechnic, that
shows you many-headed, many-armed, many-footed, and many-tailed awful
monsters in a drop of water, which were never intended for us to see,
or Providence would have made our eyes like Lord Rosse's telescope
(which discloses the secrets of the moon), and given us springs that
had none of these canables in 'em.
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