_I_.
A wretched pun.... The mass of mankind run much after the fashion of the
sheep of Panurge, but there are always a few that--
_Conscience_.
A few that are like the Gadarene swine.
_I_.
Ah,...were I the precipice, were I the sea in which the pigs might
drown!
_Conscience_.
The same old desire of admiration, admiration in its original sense of
wonderment (miratio); you are a true child of the century; you do not
desire admiration, you would avoid it, fearing it might lessen that
sense which you only care to stimulate--wonderment. And persecuted by
the desire to astonish, you are now exhibiting yourself in the most
hideous light you can devise. The man whose biography you are writing is
no better than a pimp.
_I_.
Then he is not like me; I have never been a pimp, and I don't think I
would be if I could.
_Conscience_.
The whole of your moral nature is reflected in Lewis Seymore, even to
the "And I don't think I would be if I could."
_I_.
I love the abnormal, and there is certainly something strangely
grotesque in the life of a pimp. But it is nonsense to suggest that
Lewis Seymore is myself;...you know that my original notion was to do
the side of Lucien de Rubrempré that--
_Conscience_.
That Balzac had the genius to leave out.
_I_.
Really, if you can only make disagreeable remarks, I think we had better
bring this conversation to a close.
_Conscience_.
One word more. You have failed in everything you have attempted, and you
will continue to fail until you consider those moral principles--those
rules of conduct which the race has built up, guided by an unerring
instinct of self-preservation. Humanity defends herself against those
who attempt to subvert her; and none, neither Napoleon nor the wretched
scribbler such as you are, has escaped her vengeance.
_I_.
You would have me pull down the black flag and turn myself into an
honest merchantman, with children in the hold and a wife at the helm.
You would remind me that grey hairs begin to show, that health falls
into rags, that high spirits split like canvas, and that in the end the
bright buccaneer drifts, an old derelict, tossed by the waves of ill
fortune, and buffeted by the winds into those dismal bays and dangerous
offings--housekeepers, nurses, and uncomfortable chambers. Such will be
my fate; and since none may avert his fate, none can do better than to
run pluckily the course which he must pursue.
_Conscience_.
You might devise a moral ending; one that would conciliate all classes.
_I_.
It is easy to see that you are a nineteenth-century conscience.
_Conscience_.