I only stand to this: I have noticed my conscience for many years, and I know it is more trouble and bother to me than anything else I started with.

I suppose that in the beginning I prized it, because we prize anything that is ours; and yet how foolish it was to think so.
If we look at it in another way, we see how absurd it is: if I had an anvil in me would I prize it?
Of course not.

And yet when you come to think, there is no real difference between a conscience and an anvil--I mean for comfort.

I have noticed it a thousand times.

And you could dissolve an anvil with acids, when you couldn't stand it any longer; but there isn't any way that you can work off a conscience--at least so it will stay worked off; not that I know of, anyway.
There was something I wanted to do before leaving, but it was a disagreeable matter, and I hated to go at it.