CAN A LIFE HIDE ITSELF?
I had been reading, as is my wont from time to time, one of the
many volumes of "The New Pitaval," that singular record of human
crime and human cunning, and also of the inevitable fatality which,
in every case, leaves a gate open for detection. Were it not for
the latter fact, indeed, one would turn with loathing from such
endless chronicles of wickedness. Yet these may be safely
contemplated, when one has discovered the incredible fatuity of
crime, the certain weak mesh in a network of devilish texture; or
is it rather the agency of a power outside of man, a subtile
protecting principle, which allows the operation of the evil
element only that the latter may finally betray itself? Whatever
explanation we may choose, the fact is there, like a tonic medicine
distilled from poisonous plants, to brace our faith in the
ascendancy of Good in the government of the world.
Laying aside the book, I fell into a speculation concerning the
mixture of the two elements in man's nature. The life of an
individual is usually, it seemed to me, a series of
RESULTS, the processes leading to which are not often visible,
or observed when they are so.
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