No, it is not the picture or nude statue or text, with clear aim, that
is indecent; it is the beholder's own thought, inference, distorted
construction. True modesty is one of the most precious of attributes,
even virtues, but in nothing is there more pretense, more falsity,
than the needless assumption of it. Through precept and consciousness,
man has long enough realized how bad he is. I would not so much
disturb or demolish that conviction, only to resume and keep
unerringly with it the spinal meaning of the Scriptural text,
_God overlook'd all that He had made_, (including the apex of the
whole--humanity--with its elements, passions, appetites,) _and behold,
it was very good_."
Does not anything short of that third point of view, when you come to
think of it profoundly and with amplitude, impugn Creation from the
outset? In fact, however overlaid, or unaware of itself, does not
the conviction involv'd in it perennially exist at the centre of
all society, and of the sexes, and of marriage? Is it not really an
intuition of the human race? For, old as the world is, and beyond
statement as are the countless and splendid results of its culture and
evolution, perhaps the best and earliest and purest intuitions of the
human race have yet to be develop'd.
DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN LECTURE
_deliver'd in New York, April 14, 1879--in Philadelphia, '80--in
Boston, '81_
How often since that dark and dripping Saturday--that chilly April
day, now fifteen years bygone--my heart has entertain'd the dream, the
wish, to give of Abraham Lincoln's death, its own special thought and
memorial.
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