[The Mystic Will by Charles Godfrey Leland]@TWC D-Link bookThe Mystic Will CHAPTER V 12/13
We all admit that most human beings have defects or faults of which they would gladly be freed (however incorrigible they _appear_ to be), but they have not the patience to effect a cure, to keep to the resolve, or prevent it from fading out of sight.
For a _vast_ proportion of all minor sins, or those within the law, there is no cure sought.
The offender says and believes, "It is too strong for me"-- and yet these small unpunished offenses cause a thousand times more suffering than all the great crimes. Within a generation, owing to the great increase of population, prosperity and personal comfort, nervous susceptibility has also gained in extent, but there has been no check to petty abuse of power, selfishness, which always comes out in some form of injustice or wrong, or similar vexations.
Nay, what with the disproportionate growth of vulgar wealth, this element has rapidly increased, and it would really seem as if the plague must spread _ad infinitum_, unless some means can be found to _invogliare_ and inspire the offenders with a sense of their sins, and move them to reform.
And it is more than probable that if all who are at heart sincerely willing to reform their morals and manners could be brought to keep their delinquencies before their consciousness in the very simple manner which I have indicated, the fashion or _mode_ might at least be inaugurated.
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