The White People | Page 3

it."
"But shouldn't we experience a certain horror--a terror such as you
hinted we would experience if a rose tree sang--in the mere presence of
an evil man?"
"We should if we were natural: children and women feel this horror
you speak of, even animals experience it. But with most of us
convention and civilization and education have blinded and deafened
and obscured the natural reason. No, sometimes we may recognize evil
by its hatred of the good--one doesn't need much penetration to guess at
the influence which dictated, quite unconsciously, the 'Blackwood'
review of Keats--but this is purely incidental; and, as a rule, I suspect

that the Hierarchs of Tophet pass quite unnoticed, or, perhaps, in
certain cases, as good but mistaken men."
"But you used the word 'unconscious' just now, of Keats' reviewers. Is
wickedness ever unconscious?"
"Always. It must be so. It is like holiness and genius in this as in other
points; it is a certain rapture or ecstasy of the soul; a transcendent effort
to surpass the ordinary bounds. So, surpassing these, it surpasses also
the understanding, the faculty that takes note of that which comes
before it. No, a man may be infinitely and horribly wicked and never
suspect it But I tell you, evil in this, its certain and true sense, is rare,
and I think it is growing rarer."
"I am trying to get hold of it all," said Cotgrave. From what you say, I
gather that the true evil differs generically from that which we call
evil?"
"Quite so. There is, no doubt, an analogy between the two; a
resemblance such as enables us to use, quite legitimately, such terms as
the 'foot of the mountain' and the 'leg of the table.' And, sometimes, of
course, the two speak, as it were, in the same language. The rough
miner, or 'puddler,' the untrained, undeveloped 'tiger-man,' heated by a
quart or two above his usual measure, comes home and kicks his
irritating and injudicious wife to death. He is a murderer. And Gilles de
Raiz was a murderer. But you see the gulf that separates the two? The
'word,' if I may so speak, is accidentally the same in each case, but the
'meaning' is utterly different. It is flagrant 'Hobson Jobson' to confuse
the two, or rather, it is as if one supposed that Juggernaut and the
Argonauts had something to do etymologically with one another. And
no doubt the same weak likeness, or analogy, runs between all the
'social' sins and the real spiritual sins, and in some cases, perhaps, the
lesser may be 'schoolmasters' to lead one on to the greater--from the
shadow to the reality. If you are anything of a Theologian, you will see
the importance of all this."
"I am sorry to say," remarked Cotgrave, "that I have devoted very little
of my time to theology. Indeed, I have often wondered on what grounds

theologians have claimed the title of Science of Sciences for their
favourite study; since the 'theological' books I have looked into have
always seemed to me to be concerned with feeble and obvious pieties,
or with the kings of Israel and Judah. I do not care to hear about those
kings."
Ambrose grinned.
"We must try to avoid theological discussion," he said. "I perceive that
you would be a bitter disputant. But perhaps the 'dates of the kings'
have as much to do with theology as the hobnails of the murderous
puddler with evil."
"Then, to return to our main subject, you think that sin is an esoteric,
occult thing?"
"Yes. It is the infernal miracle as holiness is the supernal. Now and
then it is raised to such a pitch that we entirely fail to suspect its
existence; it is like the note of the great pedal pipes of the organ, which
is so deep that we cannot hear it. In other cases it may lead to the
lunatic asylum, or to still stranger issues. But you must never confuse it
with mere social misdoing. Remember how the Apostle, speaking of
the 'other side,' distinguishes between 'charitable' actions and charity.
And as one may give all one's goods to the poor, and yet lack charity;
so, remember, one may avoid every crime and yet be a sinner"
"Your psychology is very strange to me," said Cotgrave, "but I confess
I like it, and I suppose that one might fairly deduce from your
premisses the conclusion that the real sinner might very possibly strike
the observer as a harmless personage enough?"
"Certainly, because the true evil has nothing to do with social life or
social laws, or if it has, only incidentally and accidentally. It is a lonely
passion of the soul--or a passion of the lonely soul--whichever you like.
If, by chance, we