human
Mr. Trebooze requests the pleasure of Mr. Thurnall's company with his hounds at----
gpt
By the by, said he,
human
I got an hour's shore-work yesterday afternoon, and refreshing enough it was. And I got a prize, too. The sucking barnacle which you asked for: I was certain I should get one or two, if I could have a look at the pools this week. Jolly little dog! he was paddling and spinning about last night, and enjoying himself, 'ere age with creeping'--What is it?--'hath clawed him in his clutch.' That fellow's destiny is not a hopeful analogy for you, sir, who believe that we shall rise after we die into some higher and freer state.
gpt
Why not?
human
Why, which is better off, the free swimming larva, or the perfect cirrhipod, rooted for ever motionless to the rock?
gpt
Which is better off, the roving young fellow who is sowing his wild oats, or the man who has settled down, and become a respectable landowner with a good house over his head?
human
And begun to propagate his species? Well, you have me there, sir, as far as this life is concerned; but you will confess that the barnacle's history proves that all crawling grubs don't turn into butterflies.
gpt
I daresay the barnacle turns into what is best for him; at all events, what he deserves. That rule of yours will apply to him, to whomsoever it will not.
human
And so does penance for the sins of his youth, as some of us are to do in the next world?
gpt
Perhaps yes; perhaps no; perhaps neither.
human
Do you speak of us, or the barnacle?
gpt
Of both.
human
I am glad of that; for on the popular notion of our being punished a million years hence for what we did when we were lads, I never could see anything but a misery and injustice in our having come into the world at all.
gpt
I can,
human
Of course I meant nothing rude: but I had to buy my experience, and paid for it dearly enough in folly.
gpt
So had I to buy mine.
human
Then why be punished over and above? Why have to pay for the folly, which was itself only the necessary price of experience'?
gpt
For being, perhaps, so foolish as not to use the experience after it has cost you so dear.
human
And will punishment cure me of the foolishness?
gpt
That depends on yourself. If it does, it must needs be so much the better for you. But perhaps you will not be punished, but forgiven.
human
Let off? That would be a very bad thing for me, unless I become a very different man from what I have been as yet. I am always right glad now to get a fall whenever I make a stumble. I should have gone to sleep in my tracks long ago else, as one to do in the back woods on a long elk hunt.
gpt
Perhaps you may become a very different man.
human
I should be sorry for that, even if it were possible.
gpt
Why? Do you consider yourself perfect?
human
No.... But somehow, Thomas Thurnall is an old friend of mine, the first I ever had; and I should be sorry to lose his company.
gpt
I don't think you need fear doing so. You have seen an insect go through strange metamorphoses, and yet remain the same individual; why should not you and I do so likewise?
human
Well?
gpt
Well--There are some points about you, I suppose, which you would not be sorry to have altered?
human
A few, quoth Tom, laughing.
gpt
I do not consider myself quite perfect yet.
human
What if those points were not really any part of your character, but mere excrescences of disease: or if that be too degrading a notion, mere scars of old wounds, and of the wear and tear of life; and what if, in some future life, all those disappeared, and the true Mr. Thomas Thurnall, pure and simple, were alone left?
gpt
It is a very hopeful notion. Only, my dear sir, one is quite self-conceited enough in this imperfect state. What intolerable coxcombs we should all be if we were perfect, and could sit admiring ourselves for ever and ever!
human
But what if that self-conceit and self-dependence were the very root of all the disease, the cause of all the scars, the very thing which will have to be got rid of, before our true character and true manhood can be developed?
gpt
Yes, I understand. Faith and humility.... You will forgive me, Major Campbell. I shall learn to respect those virtues when good people have defined them a little more exactly, and can show me somewhat more clearly in what faith differs from superstition, and humility from hypocrisy.
human
I do not think any man will ever define them for you. But you may go through a course of experiences, more severe, probably, than pleasant, which may enable you at last to define them for yourself.
gpt
Have you defined them?
human
Faith?--Yes, I trust. Humility?--No, I fear.
gpt
I should like to hear your definition of the former, at least.
human
Did I not say that you must discover it for yourself?
gpt
Yes. Well. When the lesson comes, if it does come, I suppose it will come in some learnable shape; and till then, I must shift for myself-- and if self-dependence he a punishable sin, I shall, at all events, have plenty of company whithersoever I go. There is Lord Scoutbush and Trebooze!