Lore of Proserpine | Page 6

eyes was foolishness. Windows! In either

case there was a martyrdom, and human exasperation appeased by
much broken glass. Let us not, however, condemn the wreckers of
windows. Who is to judge even them? Who is to say even of their harsh
and cruel reprisals that they were not excusable? May not they too have
been ridden by some wild spirit within them, which goaded them to
their beastly work? But if the acceptance of the doctrine of multiple
personality is going to involve me in the reconsideration of criminal
jurisprudence, I must close this essay.
I will close it with the sentence of another philosopher who has
considered deeply of these questions. "It is to be observed," he says,
"that the laws of human conduct are precisely made for the conduct of
this world of Men, in which we live, breed, and pay rent. They do not
affect the Kingdom of the Dogs, nor that of the Fishes; by a parity of
reasoning they need not be supposed to obtain in the Kingdom of
Heaven, in which the schoolmen discovered the citizens dwelling in
nine spheres, apart from the blessed immigrants, whose privileges did
not extend so near to the Heart of the Presence. How many realms there
may be between mankind's and that ultimate object of pure desire
cannot at present be known, but it may be affirmed with confidence that
any denizen of any one of them, brought into relation with human
beings, would act, and reasonably act, in ways which to men might
seem harsh and unconscionable, without sanction or convenience. Such
a being might murder one of the ratepayers of London, compound a
felony, or enter into a conspiracy to depose the King himself, and,
being detected, very properly be put under restraint, or visited with
chastisement, either deterrent or vindictive, or both. But the true
inference from the premises would be that although duress or
banishment from the kingdom might be essential, yet punishment,
so-called, ought not to be visited upon the offender. For he or she could
not be nostri juris, and that which were abominable to us might well be
reasonable to him or her, and indeed a fulfilment of the law of his being.
Punishment, therefore, could not be exemplary, since the person
punished exemplified nothing to Mankind; and if vindictive, then
would be shocking, since that which is vindicated, in the mind of the
victim either did not exist, or ought not. The Ancient Greek who
withheld from the sacrifice to Showery Zeus because a thunder-bolt

destroyed his hayrick, or the Egyptian who manumitted his slaves
because a God took the life of his eldest son, was neither a pious, nor a
reasonable person."
There is much debatable matter in this considered opinion.

A BOY IN THE WOOD
I had many bad qualities as a child, of which I need mention only three.
I was moody, irresolute, and hatefully reserved. Fate had already placed
me the eldest by three years of a large family. Add to the eminence thus
attained intentions which varied from hour to hour, a will so little in
accordance with desire that I had rather give up a cherished plan than
fight for it, and a secretive faculty equalled only by the magpie, and
you will not wonder when I affirm that I lived alone in a household of a
dozen friendly persons. As a set-off and consolation to myself I had
very strongly the power of impersonation. I could be within my own
little entity a dozen different people in a day, and live a life thronged
with these companions or rivals; and yet this set me more solitary than
ever, for I could never appear in any one of my characters to anybody
else. But alone and apart, what worlds I inhabited! Worlds of fact and
worlds of fiction. At nine years old I knew Nelson's ardour and
Wellesley's phlegm; I had Napoleon's egotism, Galahad's purity,
Lancelot's passion, Tristram's melancholy. I reasoned like Socrates and
made Phædo weep; I persuaded like Saint Paul and saw the throng on
Mars' Hill sway to my words. I was by turns Don Juan and Don
Quixote, Tom Jones and Mr. Allworthy, Hamlet and his uncle, young
Shandy and his. You will gather that I was a reader. I was, and the
people of my books stepped out of their pages and inhabited me. Or, to
change the figure, I found in every book an open door, and went in and
dwelt in its world. Thus I lived a thronged and busy life, a secret life,
full of terror, triumph, wonder, frantic enterprise, a noble and gallant
figure among my peers, while to my parents, brothers and sisters I was
an incalculable, fitful creature, often lethargic and often in