"I wonder what he would have thought of a case I had an opportunity of
observing a few weeks ago," remarked Mr. Miller. "There he could find
no trace of insanity, no lack of logic, or of reason, but an absolute
absence of any moral sense. I think I have never seen a more perfect
example of the thing he denies. Here was a young woman, beautiful,
delicate of body, refined, of good manners, and moderately educated,
to whom no law of man or of society was sacred, who denied the power
of God as lightly as she defied the opinion of the world; who knew
nothing of shame, of duty, or of kindness, and whose mind was as clear
as yours or mine, and whose mental process was absolutely regular."
"Tell me of her," said Dr. Crossett eagerly. "I have several times
found cases that at first seemed to be as lacking in moral sense as
this one you describe, but always on close study I have found some
promptings of the softer impulses. I, for instance, have seen a thief
who robbed the poor-box of a church share his booty to feed a hungry
child whom he met casually upon the street. I have seen a burly brute,
who a few hours before had murdered his wife, weep over the sufferings
of an injured dog. Here there was not an absolute lack of the thing we
perhaps might call soul, although that examples of total and absolute
depravity exist among the sane is a favorite theory of mine. Tell me
of this woman!"
"She was a woman, although she looked to be little more than a child,"
began Mr. Miller. "It was at Narragansett Pier, a summer resort, not
far from New York. I had noticed her from the first, my attention
being attracted by the curious fact that, in spite of her gracious and
happy manner, both my grandchild and her little dog seemed to be
overcome by a queer aversion from the moment when they first came near
to her."
"Ah! You believe then----"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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