Shortly after Robert Louis Stevenson published his curious
psychological story of transformation, a friend of mine, called
Mr. Hyde, was in the north of London, and being anxious to
get to a railway station, he took what he thought was a short
cut, lost his way and found himself in a network of mean,
evil-looking streets. Feeling rather nervous he was walking
extremely fast, when suddenly out of an archway ran a child
right between his legs. The child fell on the pavement, he
tript over it, and trampled upon it. Being, of course, very
much frightened and not a little hurt, it began to scream, and
in a few seconds the whole street was full of rough people who
kept pouring out of the houses like ants. They surrounded him
and asked him his name. He was just about to give it, when he
suddenly remembered the opening incident of Mr. Stevenson’s
story. He was so filled with horror at having realized in his
own person that terrible scene, and at having done accidentally
what the Mr. Hyde of fiction had done with deliberate intent,
that he ran away as fast as he could go. He was, however, very
closely followed, and he finally took refuge in a surgery, the
door of which happened to be open, where he explained to a
young man, apparently an assistant, who happened to be there,
exactly what had occurred. The crowd was induced to go away
on his giving them a small sum of money, and as soon as the
coast was clear he left. As he passed out, the name on the
brass door-plate of the surgery caught his eye. It was “Mr.
Jekyll.”--_Nineteenth Century._
(476)
=Colds=--See VITALITY, LOW.
=Collection, Missionary=--See CROWNING CHRIST.
=Collection, The=--See GENEROSITY, THOROUGHGOING.