What is guilt1? A stain upon the soul. And it is a point of vast interest whether the soul may contract such stains in all their depth and flagrancy from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon, but which physically2 have never had existence. Must the fleshly hand and visible frame of man set its seal to the evil designs of the soul, in order to give them their entire validity against the sinner? Or, while none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly tribunal, will guilty thoughts — of which guilty deeds are no more than shadows, — will these draw down the full weight of a condemning4 sentence in the supreme5 court of eternity6? In the solitude7 of a midnight chamber8 or in a desert afar from men or in a church while the body is kneeling the soul may pollute itself even with those crimes which we are accustomed to deem altogether carnal. If this be true, it is a fearful truth.
Let us illustrate9 the subject by an imaginary example. A venerable gentleman — one Mr. Smith — who had long been regarded as a pattern of moral excellence10 was warming his aged11 blood with a glass or two of generous wine. His children being gone forth12 about their worldly business and his grandchildren at school, he sat alone in a deep luxurious13 arm-chair with his feet beneath a richly-carved mahogany table. Some old people have a dread14 of solitude, and when better company may not be had rejoice even to hear the quiet breathing of a babe asleep upon the carpet. But Mr. Smith, whose silver hair was the bright symbol of a life unstained except by such spots as are inseparable from human nature — he had no need of a babe to protect him by its purity, nor of a grown person to stand between him and his own soul. Nevertheless, either manhood must converse15 with age, or womanhood must soothe16 him with gentle cares, or infancy17 must sport around his chair, or his thoughts will stray into the misty18 region of the past and the old man be chill and sad. Wine will not always cheer him.
Such might have been the case with Mr. Smith, when, through the brilliant medium of his glass of old Madeira, he beheld19 three figures entering the room. These were Fancy, who had assumed the garb20 and aspect of an itinerant21 showman, with a box of pictures on her back; and Memory, in the likeness22 of a clerk, with a pen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her buttonhole and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm; and lastly, behind the other two, a person shrouded23 in a dusky mantle24 which concealed25 both face and form. But Mr. Smith had a shrewd idea that it was Conscience. How kind of Fancy, Memory and Conscience to visit the old gentleman just as he was beginning to imagine that the wine had neither so bright a sparkle nor so excellent a flavor as when himself and the liquor were less aged! Through the dim length of the apartment, where crimson26 curtains muffled27 the glare of sunshine and created a rich obscurity, the three guests drew near the silver-haired old man. Memory, with a finger between the leaves of her huge volume, placed herself at his right hand; Conscience, with her face still hidden in the dusky mantle, took her station on the left, so as to be next his heart; while Fancy set down her picture-box upon the table with the magnifying-glass convenient to his eye.
We can sketch28 merely the outlines of two or three out of the many pictures which at the pulling of a string successively peopled the box with the semblances29 of living scenes. One was a moonlight picture, in the background a lowly dwelling31, and in front, partly shadowed by a tree, yet besprinkled with flakes32 of radiance, two youthful figures, male and female. The young man stood with folded arms, a haughty33 smile upon his lip and a gleam of triumph in his eye as he glanced downward at the kneeling girl. She was almost prostrate34 at his feet, evidently sinking under a weight of shame and anguish35 which hardly allowed her to lift her clasped hands in supplication36. Her eyes she could not lift. But neither her agony, nor the lovely features on which it was depicted37, nor the slender grace of the form which it convulsed, appeared to soften38 the obduracy39 of the young man. He was the personification of triumphant40 scorn.
Now, strange to say, as old Mr. Smith peeped through the magnifying-glass, which made the objects start out from the canvas with magical deception41, he began to recognize the farmhouse42, the tree and both the figures of the picture. The young man in times long past had often met his gaze within the looking-glass; the girl was the very image of his first love — his cottage-love, his Martha Burroughs. Mr. Smith was scandalized. “Oh, vile43 and slanderous44 picture!” he exclaims. “When have I triumphed over ruined innocence45? Was not Martha wedded46 in her teens to David Tomkins, who won her girlish love and long enjoyed her affection as a wife? And ever since his death she has lived a reputable widow!”
Meantime, Memory was turning over the leaves of her volume, rustling47 them to and fro with uncertain fingers, until among the earlier pages she found one which had reference to this picture. She reads it close to the old gentleman’s ear: it is a record merely of sinful thought which never was embodied48 in an act, but, while Memory is reading, Conscience unveils her face and strikes a dagger49 to the heart of Mr. Smith. Though not a death-blow, the torture was extreme.
The exhibition proceeded. One after another Fancy displayed her pictures, all of which appeared to have been painted by some malicious50 artist on purpose to vex51 Mr. Smith. Not a shadow of proof could have been adduced in any earthly court that he was guilty of the slightest of those sins which were thus made to stare him in the face. In one scene there was a table set out, with several bottles and glasses half filled with wine, which threw back the dull ray of an expiring lamp. There had been mirth and revelry until the hand of the clock stood just at midnight, when Murder stepped between the boon-companions. A young man had fallen on the floor, and lay stone dead with a ghastly wound crushed into his temple, while over him, with a delirium52 of mingled53 rage and horror in his countenance54, stood the youthful likeness of Mr. Smith. The murdered youth wore the features of Edward Spencer. “What does this rascal55 of a painter mean?” cries Mr. Smith, provoked beyond all patience. “Edward Spencer was my earliest and dearest friend, true to me as I to him through more than half a century. Neither I nor any other ever murdered him. Was he not alive within five years, and did he not, in token of our long friendship, bequeath me his gold-headed cane56 and a mourning-ring?”
Again had Memory been turning over her volume, and fixed57 at length upon so confused a page that she surely must have scribbled58 it when she was tipsy. The purport59 was, however, that while Mr. Smith and Edward Spencer were heating their young blood with wine a quarrel had flashed up between them, and Mr. Smith, in deadly wrath60, had flung a bottle at Spencer’s head. True, it missed its aim and merely smashed a looking-glass; and the next morning, when the incident was imperfectly remembered, they had shaken hands with a hearty61 laugh. Yet, again, while Memory was reading, Conscience unveiled her face, struck a dagger to the heart of Mr. Smith and quelled62 his remonstrance63 with her iron frown. The pain was quite excruciating.
Some of the pictures had been painted with so doubtful a touch, and in colors so faint and pale, that the subjects could barely be conjectured64. A dull, semi-transparent mist had been thrown over the surface of the canvas, into which the figures seemed to vanish while the eye sought most earnestly to fix them. But in every scene, however dubiously65 portrayed66, Mr. Smith was invariably haunted by his own lineaments at various ages as in a dusty mirror. After poring several minutes over one of these blurred67 and almost indistinguishable pictures, he began to see that the painter had intended to represent him, now in the decline of life, as stripping the clothes from the backs of three half-starved children. “Really, this puzzles me!” quoth Mr. Smith, with the irony68 of conscious rectitude. “Asking pardon of the painter, I pronounce him a fool as well as a scandalous knave69. A man of my standing70 in the world to be robbing little children of their clothes! Ridiculous!”
But while he spoke71 Memory had searched her fatal volume and found a page which with her sad calm voice she poured into his ear. It was not altogether inapplicable to the misty scene. It told how Mr. Smith had been grievously tempted72 by many devilish sophistries73, on the ground of a legal quibble, to commence a lawsuit74 against three orphan-children, joint-heirs to a considerable estate. Fortunately, before he was quite decided75, his claims had turned out nearly as devoid76 of law as justice. As Memory ceased to read Conscience again thrust aside her mantle, and would have struck her victim with the envenomed dagger only that he struggled and clasped his hands before his heart. Even then, however, he sustained an ugly gash78.
Why should we follow Fancy through the whole series of those awful pictures? Painted by an artist of wondrous79 power and terrible acquaintance with the secret soul, they embodied the ghosts of all the never-perpetrated sins that had glided80 through the lifetime of Mr. Smith. And could such beings of cloudy fantasy, so near akin81 to nothingness, give valid3 evidence against him at the day of judgment82? Be that the case or not, there is reason to believe that one truly penitential tear would have washed away each hateful picture and left the canvas white as snow. But Mr. Smith, at a prick83 of Conscience too keen to be endured, bellowed84 aloud with impatient agony, and suddenly discovered that his three guests were gone. There he sat alone, a silver-haired and highly-venerated old man, in the rich gloom of the crimsoned-curtained room, with no box of pictures on the table, but only a decanter of most excellent Madeira. Yet his heart still seemed to fester with the venom77 of the dagger.
Nevertheless, the unfortunate old gentleman might have argued the matter with Conscience and alleged85 many reasons wherefore she should not smite86 him so pitilessly. Were we to take up his cause, it should be somewhat in the following fashion. A scheme of guilt, till it be put in execution, greatly resembles a train of incidents in a projected tale. The latter, in order to produce a sense of reality in the reader’s mind, must be conceived with such proportionate strength by the author as to seem in the glow of fancy more like truth, past, present or to come, than purely87 fiction. The prospective88 sinner, on the other hand, weaves his plot of crime, but seldom or never feels a perfect certainty that it will be executed. There is a dreaminess diffused89 about his thoughts; in a dream, as it were, he strikes the death-blow into his victim’s heart and starts to find an indelible blood-stain on his hand. Thus a novel-writer or a dramatist, in creating a villain90 of romance and fitting him with evil deeds, and the villain of actual life in projecting crimes that will be perpetrated, may almost meet each other halfway91 between reality and fancy. It is not until the crime is accomplished92 that Guilt clenches93 its gripe upon the guilty heart and claims it for his own. Then, and not before, sin is actually felt and acknowledged, and, if unaccompanied by repentance94, grows a thousandfold more virulent95 by its self-consciousness. Be it considered, also, that men often overestimate96 their capacity for evil. At a distance, while its attendant circumstances do not press upon their notice and its results are dimly seen, they can bear to contemplate97 it. They may take the steps which lead to crime, impelled98 by the same sort of mental action as in working out a mathematical problem, yet be powerless with compunction at the final moment. They knew not what deed it was that they deemed themselves resolved to do. In truth, there is no such thing in man’s nature as a settled and full resolve, either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution. Let us hope, therefore, that all the dreadful consequences of sin will not be incurred99 unless the act have set its seal upon the thought.
Yet, with the slight fancy-work which we have framed, some sad and awful truths are interwoven. Man must not disclaim100 his brotherhood101 even with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms102 of iniquity103. He must feel that when he shall knock at the gate of heaven no semblance30 of an unspotted life can entitle him to entrance there. Penitence104 must kneel and Mercy come from the footstool of the throne, or that golden gate will never open.
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1
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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condemning
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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shrouded
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| v.隐瞒( shroud的过去式和过去分词 )；保密 | |
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mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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semblances
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| n.外表，外观（semblance的复数形式） | |
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semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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supplication
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| n.恳求，祈愿，哀求 | |
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depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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soften
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| v.(使)变柔软；(使)变柔和 | |
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obduracy
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| n.冷酷无情，顽固，执拗 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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slanderous
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| adj.诽谤的，中伤的 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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vex
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| vt.使烦恼，使苦恼 | |
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delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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purport
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| n.意义，要旨，大要；v.意味著，做为...要旨，要领是... | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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quelled
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| v.（用武力）制止，结束，镇压( quell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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portrayed
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| v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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knave
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| n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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sophistries
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| n.诡辩术( sophistry的名词复数 )；（一次）诡辩 | |
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lawsuit
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| n.诉讼，控诉 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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bellowed
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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smite
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| v.重击；彻底击败；n.打；尝试；一点儿 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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clenches
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的第三人称单数 ) | |
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repentance
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| n.懊悔 | |
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virulent
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| adj.有毒的，有恶意的，充满敌意的 | |
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overestimate
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| v.估计过高，过高评价 | |
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contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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disclaim
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| v.放弃权利，拒绝承认 | |
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brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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phantoms
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| n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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iniquity
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| n.邪恶；不公正 | |
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penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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