My friends all regarded me as a man of unsound mind because I held the view that my wife was with me in spirit always. I have lived with her spirit guiding me every day and she is with me now as I write this letter, and helps me to do as I am now doing.
Man's mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain.
Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate though secret tendency to the love of Good in his main-spring of Mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms.
Pain and sorrow and misery have a right to our assistance: compassion puts us in mind of the debt, and that we owe it to ourselves as well as to the distressed.
This was the man, this Balaam, I say, was the man, who desired to die the death of the righteous, and that his last end might be like his; and this was the state of his mind when he pronounced these words.
Obviously, I've seen what the press has done to my cousins. I would never let that rule my life, but I'm not the kind of person to rebel or do things. I don't know. I don't let the potential for bad press dictate who I am, but I keep that in mind. How can you not?
