... no serpentine poison of those that seduce women
... not the foolish yielding of women ... not prostitution
... not of any depravity of young men ... not of the
attainment of gain by discreditable means ... not
any nastiness of appetite ... not any harshness of
officers to men or judges to prisoners or fathers
to sons or sons to fathers or of husbands to wives
or bosses to their boys ... not of greedy looks or
malignant wishes ... nor any of the wiles practised
by people upon themselves ... ever is or ever can
be stamped on the programme but it is duly realized
and returned, and that returned in further performances
... and they returned again. Nor can the push
of charity or personal force ever be anything else
than the profoundest reason, whether it bring argument
to hand or no. No specification is necessary
... to add or subtract or divide is in vain. Little
or big, learned or unlearned, white or black, legal
or illegal, sick or well, from the first inspiration
down the windpipe to the last expiration out of it,
all that a male or female does that is vigorous and
benevolent and clean is so much sure profit to him
or her in the unshakable order of the universe and
through the whole scope of it for ever. If the
savage or felon is wise it is well ... if the greatest
poet or savan is wise it is simply the same ... if
the President or chief justice is wise it is the same
... if the young mechanic or farmer is wise it is no
more or less ... if the prostitute is wise it is no
more nor less. The interest will come round ...
all will come round. All the best actions of
war and peace ... all help given to relatives and strangers
and the poor and old and sorrowful and young children
and widows and the sick, and to all shunned persons
... all furtherance of fugitives and of the escape
of slaves ... all the self-denial that stood steady
and aloof on wrecks and saw others take the seats
of the boats ... all offering of substance or life
for the good old cause, or for a friend’s sake
or opinion’s sake ... all pains of enthusiasts
scoffed at by their neighbors ... all the vast sweet
love and precious sufferings of mothers ... all honest
men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded ...
all the grandeur and good of the few ancient nations
whose fragments of annals we inherit ... and all the
good of the hundreds of far mightier and more ancient
nations unknown to us by name or date or location
... all that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded
or no ... all that has at any time been well suggested
out of the divine heart of man or by the divinity
of his mouth or by the shaping of his great hands
... and all that is well thought or done this day on
any part of the surface of the globe ... or on any
of the wandering stars or fixed stars by those there
as we are here ... or that is henceforth to be well
thought or done by you whoever you are, or by any
one—these singly and wholly inured at their
time and inure now and will inure always to the identities