A rose is not the less a rose
because it does not know its own name.
What if circumstances had made his duty more easy for him than it
would be to most men? That was his luck, as much as it is other
people's luck to have other duties made easy for them by accident of
birth. Surely if people are born rich or handsome they have a right to
their good fortune. Some, I know, will say that one man has no right
to be born with a better constitution than another; others again
will say that luck is the only righteous object of human veneration.
Both, I daresay, can make out a very good case, but whichever may be
right surely Ernest had as much right to the good luck of finding a
duty made easier as he had had to the bad fortune of falling into
the scrape which had got him into prison. A man is not to be sneered
at for having a trump card in his hand; he is only to be sneered at if
he plays his trump card badly.
Indeed, I question whether it is ever much harder for anyone to give
up father and mother for Christ's sake than it was for Ernest. The
relations between the parties will have almost always been severely
strained before it comes to this. I doubt whether anyone was ever
yet required to give up those to whom he was tenderly attached for a
mere matter of conscience: he will have ceased to be tenderly attached
to them long before he is called upon to break with them; for
differences of opinion concerning any matter of vital importance
spring from differences of constitution, and these will already have
led to so much other disagreement that the "giving up," when it comes,
is like giving up an aching but very loose and hollow tooth.
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