“Come, come! Remember the flag of truce!”
“Ah, I forgot that. I will try to be civil; and you try it, too, for a
novelty. The idea of a civil conscience! It is a good joke; an excellent
joke. All the consciences I have ever heard of were nagging, badgering,
fault-finding, execrable savages! Yes; and always in a sweat about some
poor little insignificant trifle or other--destruction catch the lot
of them, I say! I would trade mine for the smallpox and seven kinds of
consumption, and be glad of the chance. Now tell me, why is it that a
conscience can't haul a man over the coals once, for an offense, and
then let him alone? Why is it that it wants to keep on pegging at him,
day and night and night and day, week in and week out, forever and ever,
about the same old thing? There is no sense in that, and no reason in
it. I think a conscience that will act like that is meaner than the very
dirt itself.”
“Well, WE like it; that suffices.”
“Do you do it with the honest intent to improve a man?”
That question produced a sarcastic smile, and this reply:
“No, sir. Excuse me. We do it simply because it is 'business.' It is
our trade. The purpose of it is to improve the man, but we are merely
disinterested agents. We are appointed by authority, and haven't
anything to say in the matter. We obey orders and leave the consequences
where they belong. But I am willing to admit this much: we do crowd
the orders a trifle when we get a chance, which is most of the time. We
enjoy it. We are instructed to remind a man a few times of an error; and
I don't mind acknowledging that we try to give pretty good measure. And
when we get hold of a man of a peculiarly sensitive nature, oh, but
we do haze him! I have consciences to come all the way from China and
Russia to see a person of that kind put through his paces, on a special
occasion. Why, I knew a man of that sort who had accidentally crippled
a mulatto baby; the news went abroad, and I wish you may never commit
another sin if the consciences didn't flock from all over the earth
to enjoy the fun and help his master exorcise him. That man walked the
floor in torture for forty-eight hours, without eating or sleeping, and
then blew his brains out. The child was perfectly well again in three
weeks.”
“Well, you are a precious crew, not to put it too strong. I think I
begin to see now why you have always been a trifle inconsistent with me.
In your anxiety to get all the juice you can out of a sin, you make
a man repent of it in three or four different ways. For instance, you
found fault with me for lying to that tramp, and I suffered over that.
But it was only yesterday that I told a tramp the square truth, to wit,
that, it being regarded as bad citizenship to encourage vagrancy, I
would give him nothing. What did you do then: Why, you made me say to
myself, 'Ah, it would have been so much kinder and more blameless to
ease him off with a little white lie, and send him away feeling that if
he could not have bread, the gentle treatment was at least something to
be grateful for!' Well, I suffered all day about that. Three days before
I had fed a tramp, and fed him freely, supposing it a virtuous act.
Straight off you said, 'Oh, false citizen, to have fed a tramp!' and I
suffered as usual. I gave a tramp work; you objected to it--after the
contract was made, of course; you never speak up beforehand. Next, I
refused a tramp work; you objected to that. Next, I proposed to kill a
tramp; you kept me awake all night, oozing remorse at every pore. Sure
I was going to be right this time, I sent the next tramp away with my
benediction; and I wish you may live as long as I do, if you didn't make
me smart all night again because I didn't kill him. Is there any way of
satisfying that malignant invention which is called a conscience?”
“Ha, ha! this is luxury! Go on!”
“But come, now, answer me that question. Is there any way?”
“Well, none that I propose to tell you, my son. Ass! I don't care what
act you may turn your hand to, I can straightway whisper a word in your
ear and make you think you have committed a dreadful meanness. It is my
business--and my joy--to make you repent of everything you do. If I have
fooled away any opportunities it was not intentional; I beg to assure
you it was not intentional!”
“Don't worry; you haven't missed a trick that I know of. I never did a
thing in all my life, virtuous or otherwise, that I didn't repent of in
twenty-four hours. In church last Sunday I listened to a charity sermon.
My first impulse was to give three hundred and fifty dollars; I repented
of that and reduced it a hundred; repented of that and reduced it
another hundred; repented of that and reduced it another hundred;
repented of that and reduced the remaining fifty to twenty-five;
repented of that and came down to fifteen; repented of that and dropped
to two dollars and a half; when the plate came around at last, I
repented once more and contributed ten cents. Well, when I got home, I
did wish to goodness I had that ten cents back again! You never did
let me get through a charity sermon without having something to sweat
about.”
“Oh, and I never shall, I never shall. You can always depend on me.”
“I think so. Many and many's the restless night I've wanted to take you
by the neck. If I could only get hold of you now!”
“Yes, no doubt. But I am not an ass; I am only the saddle of an ass. But
go on, go on. You entertain me more than I like to confess.”
“I am glad of that. (You will not mind my lying a little, to keep in
practice.) Look here; not to be too personal, I think you are about the
shabbiest and most contemptible little shriveled-up reptile that can be
imagined. I am grateful enough that you are invisible to other people,
for I should die with shame to be seen with such a mildewed monkey of a
conscience as you are. Now if you were five or six feet high, and--”
“Oh, come! who is to blame?”
“I don't know.”
“Why, you are; nobody else.”
“Confound you, I wasn't consulted about your personal appearance.”
“I don't care, you had a good deal to do with it, nevertheless. When you
were eight or nine years old, I was seven feet high, and as pretty as a
picture.”
“I wish you had died young! So you have grown the wrong way, have you?”
“Some of us grow one way and some the other. You had a large conscience
once; if you've a small conscience now I reckon there are reasons for
it. However, both of us are to blame, you and I. You see, you used to be
conscientious about a great many things; morbidly so, I may say. It was
a great many years ago. You probably do not remember it now. Well, I
took a great interest in my work, and I so enjoyed the anguish which
certain pet sins of yours afflicted you with that I kept pelting at you
until I rather overdid the matter. You began to rebel. Of course I began
to lose ground, then, and shrivel a little--diminish in stature, get
moldy, and grow deformed. The more I weakened, the more stubbornly you
fastened on to those particular sins; till at last the places on my
person that represent those vices became as callous as shark-skin. Take
smoking, for instance. I played that card a little too long, and I lost.
When people plead with you at this late day to quit that vice, that old
callous place seems to enlarge and cover me all over like a shirt of
mail. It exerts a mysterious, smothering effect; and presently I, your
faithful hater, your devoted Conscience, go sound asleep! Sound? It is
no name for it. I couldn't hear it thunder at such a time. You have some
few other vices--perhaps eighty, or maybe ninety--that affect me in much
the same way.”
“This is flattering; you must be asleep a good part of your time.”
“Yes, of late years. I should be asleep all the time but for the help I
get.”
“Who helps you?”
“Other consciences. Whenever a person whose conscience I am acquainted
with tries to plead with you about the vices you are callous to, I get
my friend to give his client a pang concerning some villainy of his
own, and that shuts off his meddling and starts him off to hunt personal
consolation. My field of usefulness is about trimmed down to tramps,
budding authoresses, and that line of goods now; but don't you
worry--I'll harry you on theirs while they last! Just you put your trust
in me.”
“I think I can. But if you had only been good enough to mention
these facts some thirty years ago, I should have turned my particular
attention to sin, and I think that by this time I should not only have
had you pretty permanently asleep on the entire list of human vices, but
reduced to the size of a homeopathic pill, at that. That is about the
style of conscience I am pining for. If I only had you shrunk you down
to a homeopathic pill, and could get my hands on you, would I put you in
a glass case for a keepsake? No, sir. I would give you to a yellow dog!
That is where you ought to be--you and all your tribe. You are not fit
to be in society, in my opinion. Now another question. Do you know a
good many consciences in this section?”
“Plenty of them.”
“I would give anything to see some of them! Could you bring them here?
And would they be visible to me?”
“Certainly not.”
“I suppose I ought to have known that without asking. But no matter,
you can describe them. Tell me about my neighbor Thompson's conscience,
please.”
“Very well. I know him intimately; have known him many years. I knew him
when he was eleven feet high and of a faultless figure. But he is very
pasty and tough and misshapen now, and hardly ever interests himself
about anything. As to his present size--well, he sleeps in a cigar-box.”
“Likely enough. There are few smaller, meaner men in this region than
Hugh Thompson. Do you know Robinson's conscience?”
“Yes. He is a shade under four and a half feet high; used to be a blond;
is a brunette now, but still shapely and comely.”
“Well, Robinson is a good fellow. Do you know Tom Smith's conscience?”
“I have known him from childhood. He was thirteen inches high, and
rather sluggish, when he was two years old--as nearly all of us are at
that age. He is thirty-seven feet high now, and the stateliest figure in
America. His legs are still racked with growing-pains, but he has a good
time, nevertheless. Never sleeps. He is the most active and energetic
member of the New England Conscience Club; is president of it. Night
and day you can find him pegging away at Smith, panting with his labor,
sleeves rolled up, countenance all alive with enjoyment. He has got his
victim splendidly dragooned now. He can make poor Smith imagine that the
most innocent little thing he does is an odious sin; and then he sets to
work and almost tortures the soul out of him about it.”
“Smith is the noblest man in all this section, and the purest; and
yet is always breaking his heart because he cannot be good! Only a
conscience could find pleasure in heaping agony upon a spirit like that.
Do you know my aunt Mary's conscience?”
“I have seen her at a distance, but am not acquainted with her. She
lives in the open air altogether, because no door is large enough to
admit her.”
“I can believe that. Let me see. Do you know the conscience of that
publisher who once stole some sketches of mine for a 'series' of his,
and then left me to pay the law expenses I had to incur in order to
choke him off?”
“Yes. He has a wide fame. He was exhibited, a month ago, with some
other antiquities, for the benefit of a recent Member of the Cabinet's
conscience that was starving in exile. Tickets and fares were high, but
I traveled for nothing by pretending to be the conscience of an editor,
and got in for half-price by representing myself to be the conscience of
a clergyman. However, the publisher's conscience, which was to have been
the main feature of the entertainment, was a failure--as an exhibition.
He was there, but what of that? The management had provided a microscope
with a magnifying power of only thirty thousand diameters, and so nobody
got to see him, after all. There was great and general dissatisfaction,
of course, but--”
Just here there was an eager footstep on the stair; I opened the door,
and my aunt Mary burst into the room. It was a joyful meeting and a
cheery bombardment of questions and answers concerning family matters
ensued. By and by my aunt said:
“But I am going to abuse you a little now. You promised me, the day I
saw you last, that you would look after the needs of the poor family
around the corner as faithfully as I had done it myself. Well, I found
out by accident that you failed of your promise. Was that right?”
In simple truth, I never had thought of that family a second time! And
now such a splintering pang of guilt shot through me! I glanced up at
my Conscience. Plainly, my heavy heart was affecting him. His body was
drooping forward; he seemed about to fall from the bookcase. My aunt
continued:
“And think how you have neglected my poor protege at the almshouse, you
dear, hard-hearted promise-breaker!” I blushed scarlet, and my tongue
was tied. As the sense of my guilty negligence waxed sharper and
stronger, my Conscience began to sway heavily back and forth; and when
my aunt, after a little pause, said in a grieved tone, “Since you never
once went to see her, maybe it will not distress you now to know that
that poor child died, months ago, utterly friendless and forsaken!” My
Conscience could no longer bear up under the weight of my sufferings,
but tumbled headlong from his high perch and struck the floor with a
dull, leaden thump. He lay there writhing with pain and quaking with
apprehension, but straining every muscle in frantic efforts to get up.
In a fever of expectancy I sprang to the door, locked it, placed my back
against it, and bent a watchful gaze upon my struggling master. Already
my fingers were itching to begin their murderous work.
“Oh, what can be the matter!” exclaimed by aunt, shrinking from me, and
following with her frightened eyes the direction of mine. My breath
was coming in short, quick gasps now, and my excitement was almost
uncontrollable. My aunt cried out:
“Oh, do not look so! You appal me! Oh, what can the matter be? What
is it you see? Why do you stare so? Why do you work your fingers like
that?”
“Peace, woman!” I said, in a hoarse whisper. “Look elsewhere; pay no
attention to me; it is nothing--nothing. I am often this way. It will
pass in a moment. It comes from smoking too much.”
My injured lord was up, wild-eyed with terror, and trying to hobble
toward the door. I could hardly breathe, I was so wrought up. My aunt
wrung her hands, and said:
“Oh, I knew how it would be; I knew it would come to this at last! Oh, I
implore you to crush out that fatal habit while it may yet be time!
You must not, you shall not be deaf to my supplications longer!” My
struggling Conscience showed sudden signs of weariness! “Oh, promise me
you will throw off this hateful slavery of tobacco!” My Conscience began
to reel drowsily, and grope with his hands--enchanting spectacle! “I beg
you, I beseech you, I implore you! Your reason is deserting you! There
is madness in your eye! It flames with frenzy! Oh, hear me, hear me, and
be saved! See, I plead with you on my very knees!” As she sank before
me my Conscience reeled again, and then drooped languidly to the floor,
blinking toward me a last supplication for mercy, with heavy eyes. “Oh,
promise, or you are lost! Promise, and be redeemed! Promise! Promise and
live!” With a long-drawn sigh my conquered Conscience closed his eyes
and fell fast asleep!
With an exultant shout I sprang past my aunt, and in an instant I had my
lifelong foe by the throat. After so many years of waiting and longing,
he was mine at last. I tore him to shreds and fragments. I rent the
fragments to bits. I cast the bleeding rubbish into the fire, and drew
into my nostrils the grateful incense of my burnt-offering. At last, and
forever, my Conscience was dead!
I was a free man! I turned upon my poor aunt, who was almost petrified
with terror, and shouted:
“Out of this with your paupers, your charities, your reforms, your
pestilent morals! You behold before you a man whose life-conflict is
done, whose soul is at peace; a man whose heart is dead to sorrow, dead
to suffering, dead to remorse; a man WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE! In my joy I
spare you, though I could throttle you and never feel a pang! Fly!”
She fled. Since that day my life is all bliss. Bliss, unalloyed bliss.
Nothing in all the world could persuade me to have a conscience again.
I settled all my old outstanding scores, and began the world anew. I
killed thirty-eight persons during the first two weeks--all of them
on account of ancient grudges. I burned a dwelling that interrupted my
view. I swindled a widow and some orphans out of their last cow, which
is a very good one, though not thoroughbred, I believe. I have also
committed scores of crimes, of various kinds, and have enjoyed my work
exceedingly, whereas it would formerly have broken my heart and turned
my hair gray, I have no doubt.
In conclusion, I wish to state, by way of advertisement, that medical
colleges desiring assorted tramps for scientific purposes, either by the
gross, by cord measurement, or per ton, will do well to examine the lot
in my cellar before purchasing elsewhere, as these were all selected
and prepared by myself, and can be had at a low rate, because I wish to
clear, out my stock and get ready for the spring trade.