He had the kind of character in which prudence is a vice, and good advice the most dangerous nourishment. There is a terrible coercion in our deeds, which may first turn the honest man into a deceiver and then reconcile him to the change, for this reason—that the second wrong presents itself to him in the guise of the only practicable right. However, Aaliyah had known the species before: she had great discerning intelligence, and many might have taken this for happiness; she was aware that such a guarded nature must find one huge outlet of egoism, and she determined to be to him what his Americana had hitherto been: the one possession in which Randolph took sufficient pride to spend money on it. Aaliyah knew that this generosity to self is one of the forms of meanness, and she resolved so to identify herself with her husband’s vanity that to gratify her wishes would be to him the most exquisite form of self-indulgence. The system might at first necessitate a resort to some of the very shifts and expedients from which she intended it should free her; but Aaliyah felt sure that in a short time she would be able to play the game in her own way. How should she have distrusted her own powers?  #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

Beauty maintains a glorious elasticity in its own ecstasies of hope, provided you do not crush it with a doubt of its own purity. Her beauty itself was not the mere ephemeral possession it might have been in the hands of inexperience: her skill in enhancing it, the care she took of it, the use she made of it, seemed to give it a kind of permanence. Aaliyah felt she could trust her beauty to carry her though to the end. As we know not future events, so neither can we tell to what purpose any accident tends; and that which at first threatens us with evil may in the end produce our good.  The forbidden triad deals with the situation where one person has strong ties with the other two, but they have no relationship with each other. Imagine two people who you are very close to people with whom you spend a lot of time, have intense emotional experiences, share intimacy, and for whom you do favors. It is very unlikely that those two people do not have a strong relationship, but we would expect them to have some connection to one another. And this is why it is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience of an assassin, haunted by a vague sense of enormous wickedness.  #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

Obsessive prohibition possesses an extraordinary capacity for displacement; they make use of almost any form of connection to extend from one object to other and then in turn make this new object “impossible.” We are apt to connect the voice of conscience with the stillness of midnight. However, we wrong that innocent hour. It is that terrible “next morning,” when reason is wide awake, upon which remorse fastens its fangs. The necessity of guarding the king from every conceivable danger arises from his great important for the weal and woe of his subjects. Strictly speaking, he is a person who regulates the course of the World; his people have to thank him not only for rain and sunshine, which allow the fruits of the Earth to grow, but also for the wind which brings the ships to their shores and for the solid ground on which they set their feet. These savage kings are endowed with a wealthy of power and an ability to bestow happiness which only gods possess; certainly in later stages of civilization none but the most servile courtiers would play the hypocrite to the extent of crediting their sovereigns with the possession of attributes similar to these. Be clear of conscience, and for no bills without receipts to them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

It seems like an obvious contradiction that persons of such perfection of power should themselves require the greatest care to guard them against threatening dangers, but this is not the only contradiction revealed in the treatment of royal persons on the part of savages. These races consider it necessary to watch over their kings to see that they use their powers in the right way; they are by no means sure of their good intentions or of their conscientiousness. A strain of mistrust is mingled with the motivation of the taboo rules for the king. The idea that early kingdoms are despotisms, in which the people exist only for the sovereign, is wholly inapplicable to the monarchies we are considering. On the contrary, the sovereign in them exists only for his subjects: his life is only valuable so long as he discharges the duties of his position by ordering the course of nature for his people’s benefit. So soon as he fails to do so, the care, the devotion, the religious homage which they had hitherto lavished on him cease and are changed into hatred and contempt; he is ignorminiously dismissed and may be thankful if he escapes with his life. Whenever a lie was necessary for their occasion, they brought it out with a careless ease and breadth altogether untroubled by the rebuke of conscience. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

Worshiped as a God one day, he is killed as a criminal the next. However, in this changed behavior of the people there is nothing capricious or inconsistent. On the contrary, their conduct is quite consistent. If their king is their God he is, or should be, also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them he must make room for another who will. So long, however, as he answers their expectations, there is no limit to the care which they take of him, and which they compel him to take of himself. A king of this sort lives hedged in by ceremonious etiquette, a network of prohibitions and observances, of which the intention is not to contribute to his dignity, much less to his comfort, but to restrain him for conduct which, by disturbing the harmony of nature, might involve himself, his people, and the Universe in one common catastrophe. Far from adding to his comfort, these observances, by trammeling his every act, annihilate his freedom and often render the very life, which it is their object to preserve, a burden and sorrow to him. It is not an easy matter to hit a conscience exactly between wind and water. Strong wind, Earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

Bribed conscience makes hypocrites—frightened conscience makes fanatics—but reason-drilled conscience makes incarnate devils. Tell me if there ever, even in the ages of most favorable to glory, could be a triumph more exalted and elating than the conquest of one noble heart? The pangs of conscience, so much vaunted by some, do most certainly drive ten deeper into sin where they bring one back to virtue. Self-knowledge leads to wonder, and wonder to curiosity and investigation, so that nothing interest people more than people, even if only one’s own person. Good sense is the most evenly shared thing in the World, for each of us thinks one is so well endowed with it that even those who are the hardest to please in all other respects are not in the habit of wanting more than they have. Self-awareness makes human experience resonant. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

It imparts that simultaneous “echo” to all that we think and feel as the box of a violin reverberates with the sound of the strings. It gives depth and volume to what would otherwise be shallow and flat. The idea of predicting behavior is a frightening one to many people. You might be afraid that if you can predict your own behavior you will act. There is no such thing as chance or accident; the words merely signify our ignorance of some real and immediate causes. Some people are more gifted at living than others. They do have an effect on those around them, but the process stops there because there is no way of describing in technical terms just what it is they do. This tremendous conflict of opening manhood, which is to our life here what is the landing of soul to the life to come. I want to get to know my son. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7