So far as I have tried them yet, they have met with
success so much beyond my hopes, that my faith will not easily
be shaken, nor my earnestness chilled. Should I, however, be
disappointed in Boston, I could hardly hope that such a plan
could be brought to bear on general society, in any other city
of the United States. But I do not fear, if a good beginning
can be made. I am confident that twenty persons cannot be
brought together from better motives than vanity or pedantry,
to talk upon such subjects as we propose, without finding
in themselves great deficiencies, which they will be very
desirous to supply.
'Should the enterprise fail, it will be either from
incompetence in me, or that sort of vanity in them which wears
the garb of modesty. On the first of these points, I need not
speak. I cannot be supposed to have felt so much the wants of
others, without feeling my own still more deeply. And, from
the depth of this feeling, and the earnestness it gave, such
power as I have yet exerted has come. Of course, those who are
inclined to meet me, feel a confidence in me, and should they
be disappointed, I shall regret it not solely or most on my
own account.
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