Sensitive to the last fibre of his being, the artist
grew faint with exquisite pain at the thought of what he must endure
from a scandal spread among his friends. An accusation without
foundation would have been almost more than he could bear, but one
supported by such circumstantial evidence as lay behind the story Irons
would tell if he set himself to make trouble,--the bare idea drove
Fenton wild.
Fenton had always prided himself upon his superiority to public
opinion, but without public respect he could not but be supremely
miserable. It is true that he valued his own good opinion above that of
the world. It was his theory that the ultimate appeal in matters of
conduct was always to the man's inner consciousness, and in this
highest court only the man himself could be present, all the world
being shut out. It followed that a person's own opinion of his acts was
of infinitely more weight than that of any or all other people
whosoever.
"All standards are arbitrary," he was accustomed to say, "and all terms
are relative. Every man must make his own ethical code, and nobody but
the man himself can tell how far he lives up to it. Why should I care
whether people who do not even know what my rules of conduct are,
consider my course correct or not? Very likely the things they condemn
are the things it has cost me most struggle and self-denial to achieve.
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