Part 17 (1/2)
Glancing hurriedly round, to make sure, apparently, that no one but myself was within hearing, he leaned across and hissed these words into my ear--I have never forgotten them, there was a ring of such evident sincerity about them--
”I'd like to skin her, I'd like to skin her alive.”
It struck me, even in the light of my then limited judgment, as an unregenerate wish; and thus early my faith in the possibility of man's reformation received the first of those many blows that have resulted in shattering it.
Nature, whether human or otherwise, was not made to be reformed. You can develop, you can check, but you cannot alter it.
You can take a small tiger and train it to sit on a hearthrug, and to lap milk, and so long as you provide it with hearthrugs to lie on and sufficient milk to drink, it will purr and behave like an affectionate domestic pet. But it is a tiger, with all a tiger's instincts, and its progeny to the end of all time will be tigers.
In the same way, you can take an ape and develop it through a few thousand generations until it loses its tail and becomes an altogether superior ape. You can go on developing it through still a few more thousands of generations until it gathers to itself out of the waste vapours of eternity an intellect and a soul, by the aid of which it is enabled to keep the original apish nature more or less under control.
But the ape is still there, and always will be, and every now and again, when Constable Civilisation turns his back for a moment, as during ”Spanish Furies,” or ”September ma.s.sacres,” or Western mob rule, it creeps out and bites and tears at quivering flesh, or plunges its hairy arms elbow deep in blood, or dances round a burning n.i.g.g.e.r.
I knew a man once--or, rather, I knew of a man--who was a confirmed drunkard. He became and continued a drunkard, not through weakness, but through will. When his friends remonstrated with him, he told them to mind their own business, and to let him mind his. If he saw any reason for not getting drunk he would give it up. Meanwhile he liked getting drunk, and he meant to get drunk as often as possible.
He went about it deliberately, and did it thoroughly. For nearly ten years, so it was reported, he never went to bed sober. This may be an exaggeration--it would be a singular report were it not--but it can be relied upon as sufficiently truthful for all practical purposes.
Then there came a day when he did see a reason for not getting drunk. He signed no pledge, he took no oath. He said, ”I will never touch another drop of drink,” and for twenty-six years he kept his word.
At the end of that time a combination of circ.u.mstances occurred that made life troublesome to him, so that he desired to be rid of it altogether.
He was a man accustomed, when he desired a thing within his reach, to stretch out his hand and take it. He reviewed the case calmly, and decided to commit suicide.
If the thing were to be done at all, it would be best, for reasons that if set forth would make this a long story, that it should be done that very night, and, if possible, before eleven o'clock, which was the earliest hour a certain person could arrive from a certain place.
It was then four in the afternoon. He attended to some necessary business, and wrote some necessary letters. This occupied him until seven. He then called a cab and drove to a small hotel in the suburbs, engaged a private room, and ordered up materials for the making of the particular punch that had been the last beverage he had got drunk on, six- and-twenty years ago.
For three hours he sat there drinking steadily, with his watch before him. At half-past ten he rang the bell, paid his bill, came home, and cut his throat.
For a quarter of a century people had been calling that man a ”reformed character.” His character had not reformed one jot. The craving for drink had never died. For twenty-six years he had, being a great man, held it gripped by the throat. When all things became a matter of indifference to him, he loosened his grasp, and the evil instinct rose up within him as strong on the day he died as on the day he forced it down.
That is all a man can do, pray for strength to crush down the evil that is in him, and to keep it held down day after day. I never hear washy talk about ”changed characters” and ”reformed natures” but I think of a sermon I once heard at a Wesleyan revivalist meeting in the Black Country.
”Ah! my friends, we've all of us got the devil inside us. I've got him, you've got him,” cried the preacher--he was an old man, with long white hair and beard, and wild, fighting eyes. Most of the preachers who came ”reviving,” as it was called, through that district, had those eyes. Some of them needed ”reviving” themselves, in quite another sense, before they got clear out of it. I am speaking now of more than thirty years ago.
”Ah! so us have--so us have,” came the response.
”And you carn't get rid of him,” continued the speaker.
”Not of oursel's,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a fervent voice at the end of the room, ”but the Lord will help us.”
The old preacher turned on him almost fiercely:--
”But th' Lord woan't,” he shouted; ”doan't 'ee reckon on that, lad. Ye've got him an' ye've got ta keep him. Ye carn't get rid of him. Th' Lord doan't mean 'ee to.”
Here there broke forth murmurs of angry disapproval, but the old fellow went on, unheeding:--
”It arn't good for 'ee to get rid of him. Ye've just got to hug him tight. Doan't let him go. Hold him fast, and--LAM INTO HIM. I tell 'ee it's good, healthy Christian exercise.”
We had been discussing the subject with reference to our hero. It had been suggested by Brown as an unhackneyed idea, and one lending itself, therefore, to comparative freshness of treatment, that our hero should be a thorough-paced scamp.
Jephson seconded the proposal, for the reason that it would the better enable us to accomplish artistic work. He was of opinion that we should be more sure of our ground in drawing a villain than in attempting to portray a good man.