You are staring only at the outside
layer of your neighbors; just peel them and see what you will find.
I speak from the highest possible authority,--my own. Representing the
gentler half of humanity, of respectable birth, tolerable parts, and
good education, as tender-hearted as most women, not unfamiliar with
the best society, mingling, to some extent, with those who understand
and practise the minor moralities, you would at once infer from my
circumstances that I was a very fair specimen of the better class of
Americans,--and so I am. For one that stands higher than I in the
moral, social, and intellectual scale, you will undoubtedly find ten
that stand lower. Yet through all these layers gleam the fiery eyes of
my savage. I thought I was a Christian, I have endeavored to do my duty
to my day and generation; but of a sudden Christianity and civilization
leave me in the lurch, and the "old Adam" within me turns out to be
just such a fierce Saxon pirate as hurtled down against the white
shores of Britain fifteen hundred years ago.
For we have been moving.
People who live in cities and move regularly every year from one good,
finished, right-side-up house to another will think I give a very small
reason for a very broad fact; but they do not know what they are
talking about.
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