I have seen men and women so disinterested and noble, and devoted to the
best works, that it appeared to me if any good and faithful servant was
entitled to enter into the joys of his Lord, such as these might be. But
I do not know that I ever met with a human being who seemed to me to have
a stronger claim on the pitying consideration and kindness of his Maker
than a wretched, puny, crippled, stunted child that I saw in Newgate, who
was pointed out as one of the most notorious and inveterate little
thieves in London. I have no doubt that some of those who were looking
at this pitiable morbid secretion of the diseased social organism thought
they were very virtuous for hating him so heartily.
It is natural, and in one sense is all right enough. I want to catch a
thief and put the extinguisher on an incendiary as much as my neighbors
do; but I have two sides to my consciousness as I have two sides to my
heart, one carrying dark, impure blood, and the other the bright stream
which has been purified and vivified by the great source of life and
death,--the oxygen of the air which gives all things their vital heat,
and burns all things at last to ashes.
One side of me loves and hates; the other side of me judges, say rather
pleads and suspends judgment. I think, if I were left to myself, I
should hang a rogue and then write his apology and subscribe to a neat
monument, commemorating, not his virtues, but his misfortunes.
Pages:
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279