The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne [68]
“When old age comes on, and repentance calls him to look back upon this black account, and state it over again with his conscience,——CONSCIENCE looks into the STATUTES at LARGE;—finds no express law broken by what he has done;—perceives no penalty or forfeiture of goods and chattels incurred;–sees no scourge waving over his head, or prison opening his gates upon him:—What is there to affright his conscience?—Conscience has got safely entrenched behind the Letter of the Law;21 sits there invulnerable, fortified with Cases and Reports22 so strongly on all sides,—that it is not preaching can dispossess it of its hold.”
[Here Corporal Trim and my uncle Toby exchanged looks with each other.–Aye,—aye, Trim! quoth my uncle Toby, shaking his head,—these are but sorry fortifications, Trim.——O! very poor work, answered Trim, to what your Honour and I make of it.——The character of this last man, said Dr. Slop, interrupting Trim, is more detestable than all the rest;—and seems to have been taken from some pettifogging23 Lawyer amongst you:—Amongst us a man’s conscience could not possibly continue so long blinded;—three times in a year, at least, he must go to confession. Will that restore it to sight, quoth my uncle Toby?—Go on, Trim, quoth my father, or Obadiah will have got back before thou hast got to the end of thy sermon;—’tis a very short one, replied Trim.—I wish it was longer, quoth my uncle Toby, for I like it hugely.—Trim went on.]
“A fourth man shall want even this refuge;—shall break through all this ceremony of slow chicane;——scorns the doubtful workings of secret plots and cautious trains to bring about his purpose:—See the bare-faced villain, how he cheats, lies, perjures, robs, murders.——Horrid!——But indeed much better was not to be expected, in the present case,—the poor man was in the dark!—his priest had got the keeping of his conscience;—and all he would let him know of it, was, That he must believe in the Pope;—go to Mass;—cross himself;—tell his beads;—be a good Catholick, and that this, in all conscience, was enough to carry him to heaven. What;—if he perjures!—Why;—he had a mental reservation24 in it.—But if he is so wicked and abandoned a wretch as you represent him;—if he robs,—if he stabs,——will not conscience, on every such act, receive a wound itself? Aye,—but the man has carried it to confession;—the wound digests there, and will do well enough, and in a short time be quite healed up by absolution. O Popery!25 what hast thou to answer for?—when, not content with the too many natural and fatal ways, thro’ which the heart of man is every day thus treacherous to itself above all things;26—thou hast wilfully set open this wide gate of deceit before the face of this unwary traveller, too apt, God knows, to go astray of himself; and confidently speak peace to himself, when there is no peace.27
“Of this the common instances which I have drawn out of life, are too notorious to require much evidence. If any man doubts the reality of them, or thinks it impossible for a man to be such a bubble to himself,—I must refer him a moment to his own reflections, and will then venture to trust my appeal with his own heart.
“Let him consider in how different a degree of detestation, numbers of wicked actions stand there, tho’ equally bad and vicious in their own natures;—he will soon find that such of them, as strong inclination and custom have prompted him to commit, are generally dress’d out and painted with all the false beauties, which a soft and a flattering hand can give them;—and that the others, to which he feels no propensity, appear, at once, naked and deformed, surrounded with all the true circumstances of folly and dishonour.
“When David surprized Saul sleeping in the cave, and cut off the skirt of his robe,—we read his heart smote him for what he had done:28—But in the matter of Uriah, where a faithful and gallant servant, whom he ought to have loved and honoured, fell to make way for his lust,—where conscience had so much greater reason to take the alarm, his heart smote him not. A whole year had almost passed