There is more concealment;
and concealment is called delicacy. But where concealment is, the
passions are excited by the difficulties imposed by society. Barriers
are erected too high to scale, but every barrier has its wicket, its
latch key, and its private door. Natur is natur still, and there is as
much of that that is condemned in his books now, as there was then.
There is a horrid sight of hypocrisy now, more than there was one
hundred years ago; vice was audacious then, and scared folks. It ain't
so bold at present as it used to did to be; but if it is forbid to
enter the drawing-room, the back staircase is still free. Where there
is a will there is a way, and always will be. I hate pretence, and,
above all, mock modesty; it's a bad sign.
I knew a clergyman to home a monstrous pious man, and so
delicate-minded, he altered a great many words and passages in the
Church Service, he said he couldn't find it in his heart to read them
out in meetin', and yet that fellow, to my sartain knowledge, was the
greatest scamp in private life I ever knew. Gracious knows, I don't
approbate coarseness, it shocks me, but narvous sensibility makes me
sick. I like to call things by their right names, and I call a leg a
leg, and not a larger limb; a shirt a shirt, though it is next the
skin, and not a linen vestment; and a stocking a stocking, though it
does reach up the leg, and not a silk hose; and a garter a garter,
though it is above the calf, and not an elastic band or a hose
suspender.
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