the eye of their peers, among whom there exists a high standard
of courage, generosity, honour, and every good and manly quality - what wonder
that they should have become, so to speak, a law unto themselves; and, while
taking an elevated view of the goddess Ydgrun, they should have gradually lost
all faith in the recognized deities of the country? These they do not openly
disregard, for conformity until absolutely intolerable is a law of Ydgrun, yet
they have no real belief in the objective existence of beings which so readily
explain themselves as abstractions, and whose personality demands a
quasi-materialism which it baffles the imagination to realize. They keep their
opinions, however, greatly to themselves, inasmuch as most of their countrymen
feel strongly about the gods, and they hold it wrong to give pain, unless for
some greater good than seems likely to arise from their plain speaking.
    On the other hand, surely those whose own minds are clear about any given
matter (even though it be only that there is little certainty) should go so far
towards imparting that clearness to others, as to say openly what they think and
why they think it, whenever they can properly do so; for they may be sure that
they owe their own clearness almost entirely to the fact that others have done
this by them; after all, they may be mistaken, and if so, it is for their own
and the general well-being that they should let their error be seen as
distinctly as possible, so that it may be more easily refuted. I own, therefore,
that on this one point I disapproved of the practice even of the highest
Ydgrunites, and objected to it all the more because I knew that I should find my
own future task more easy if the high Ydgrunites had already undermined the
belief which is supposed to prevail at present
    In other respects they were more like the best class of Englishmen than any
whom I have seen in other countries. I should have liked to have persuaded half
a dozen of them to come over to England and go upon the stage, for they had most
of them a keen sense of humour and a taste for acting; they would be of great
use to us. The example of a real gentleman is, if I may say so without
profanity, the best of all gospels; such a man upon the stage becomes a potent
humanizing influence, an Ideal which all may look upon for a shilling.
    I always liked and admired these men, and although I could not help deeply
regretting their certain ultimate perdition (for they had no sense of