I thought only of the simplest and purest minds; I said, `Certainly yes; -- but those who hold it are fanatics of a dream which I should hardly care to relate to your English ears, to which it might be only ridiculous, -- and yet it is the only true.' So I opened the dogma of no-government and non-resistance, and anticipated the objections and the fun, and procured a kind of hearing for it. I said, it is true that I have never seen in any country a man of sufficient valor to stand for this truth, and yet it is plain to me, that no less valor than this can command my respect. I can easily see the bankruptcy of the vulgar musket-worship, -- though great men be musket-worshippers; -- and 'tis certain, as God liveth, the gun that does not need another gun, the law of love and justice alone, can effect a clean revolution. I fancied that one or two of my anecdotes made some impression on C., and I insisted, that the manifest absurdity of the view to English feasibility could make no difference to a gentleman; that as to our secure tenure of our mutton-chop and spinage in London or in Boston, the soul might quote Talleyrand, "Monsieur, je n'en vois pas la necessite." (* 2) As I had thus taken in the conversation the saint's part, when dinner was announced, C.
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