Page:Jane Eyre (1st edition), Volume 1.djvu/280

272 "They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalize them."

"They are, Miss Eyre," though they absolutely require a new statute: unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules."

"That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it is liable to abuse."

"Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to abuse it."

"You are human and fallible."

"I am: so are you—what then?"

"The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely entrusted."

"What power?"

"That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,—'Let it be right.

Let it be right'—the very words: you have pronounced them."

"May it be right then," I said, as I rose; deeming it useless to continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, sensible that the character of my interlocutor