Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction
He found Carter's mind in a state of actual lethargy. He got it out of
that; he created an excitement and kept it up. He got at his little bit
of mind through his senses. Honor to all the great arts! The limit to
their beauty and their usefulness has never yet been found and never
will. Painting was the golden key this thinker held to the Bramah lock
of an imbecile's understanding the ponderous wards were beginning to
revolve--when a blockhead came and did his best to hamper the lock.
In English, Eden was gradually making the biped a man: comes Hawes
and turns him a brute. The whimpering moans of Carter were thoroughly
animal, and the poor biped's degradation as well as his suffering made
Mr. Eden wretched.
To-day for the first time the chaplain saw a prisoner crucified without
suffering that peculiar physical weakness which I have more than once
noticed. Poor soul, he was so pleased at this that he thanked Heaven for
curing him of that contemptible infirmity, so he called it. But he
had to pay for this victory. He never felt so sick at heart as now. He
turned for relief to the duties he had in his zeal added to a chaplain's
acknowledged routine. He visited his rooms and all his rational
work-people.
The sight of all the good he was doing by teaching the sweets of
anti-theft was always a cordial to him.
Almost the last cell he visited was Thomas Robinson's. The man had been
fretting and worrying himself to know why he did not come before. As
soon as the door was opened he took an eager step to meet him, then
stopped irresolutely, and blushed and beamed with pleasure mixed with a
certain confusion. He looked volumes but waited out of respect for his
reverence to address him.
Mr. Eden held out his hand to him with a frank manner and kind smile. At
this Robinson tried to speak but could only stammer; something seemed to
rise in his throat and block up the exit of words.
“Come,” said Mr. Eden, “no more of that; be composed, and I will sit
down, for I am tired.”
Robinson brought him his stool, and Mr. Eden sat down.
They conversed, and after some kind inquiries, Mr. Eden came to the
grand purport of this visit, which, to the surprise and annoyance of
Robinson, was to reprobate severely the curses and blasphemies he had
uttered as they were dragging him to the dark cell. And so threatening
and severe was Mr. Eden, that at last poor Robinson whined out:
“Sir, you will make me wish I was in the dark cell again, for then you
took my part; now you are against me.”
“There is a time for everything under the sun. When you were in the dark
cell, consolation and indulgence were the best things for your soul, and
I gave them you as well as I could. You are not in the dark cell now,
and, out of the same love for you, I tell you that if God took you
this night the curses you uttered yesterday would destroy you to all
eternity.”
“I hope not, your reverence!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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