Читать книгу My Wayward Pardner; or, My Trials with Josiah, America, the Widow Bump, and Etcetery онлайн

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And if I could once ketch a glimpse of this—that I never shall see, nor nobody else—if I could once get inside the mystery of a mind, how could I judge it right? How could I go to work at it? How could I tackle it? Good land, it makes me sweat jest to think on’t. How could I test the strength of that mighty network of resistless influences that draws that soul by a million links up toward Goodness and down toward Evil—binds it to the outside world, and the spiritual and divine? How could I get a glimpse of that unseen yet terrible chain of circumstances, the inevitable, that wraps that soul almost completely round? How could I ever weigh, or get the right heft if I could weigh ’em, of all the individual tendencies, inherited traits, sins, and goodnesses that press down upon that soul? How could I tell how the affections, powerful critters as I ever see, was a drawin’ it one way, and where? and how fur? And ambitions and worldly desires, how they was a hawlin’ it another way, and where to? and when? How true, noble aims and holy desires was pushin’ it one way, and ignoble impulses, petty aims and littleness, self-seekin’, and vainglory was givin’ it a shove the other way? Good land! if I could see all these, and see ’em plain—which no one ever can or will—but if I could, how could I ever sort ’em out, and mark ’em with their right name and heft, and calculate how far they was a drawin’ and a influencin’ that soul, and how fur it had power to resist? How could the eyes of my spectacles ever see jest how fur down into the depths of that soul shone the Divine Ideal, the holy, stainless image of what we pray to be,—and jest how fur the mists that rise up from our earthly soil darken and blind that light? Good land! I couldn’t do it, nor Josiah, nor nobody.