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“Who,- I? You know I’m such a graceless dog that these religious aspects of such subjects don’t edify me much. If I was to say anything on this slavery mat- ter, I would say out, fair and square, ‘We’re in for it; we’ve got ‘em, and mean to keep ‘em,- it’s for our convenience and our interest;’ for that’s the long and short of it,- that’s just the whole of what all this sanctified stuff amounts to, after all; and I think that will be intelligible to everybody, everywhere.” “I do think, Augustine, you are so irreverent!” said Marie. “I think it’s shock- ing to hear you talk.” “Shocking! it’s the truth. This religious talk on such matters,- why don’t they carry it a little further, and show the beauty, in its season, of a fellow’s taking a glass too much, and sitting a little too late over his cards, and various providential arrangements of that sort, which are pretty frequent among us young men;- we’d like to hear that those are right and godly, too.” “Well,” said Miss Ophelia, “do you think slavery right or wrong?” “I’m not going to have any of your horrid New England directness, cousin,” said St. Clare, gayly. “If I answer that question, I know you’ll be at me with half a dozen others, each one harder than the last; and I’m not a-going to define my posi- tion. I am one of the sort that lives by throwing stones at other people’s glass houses, but I never mean to put up one for them to stone.” |