YOU are
not exceptional.
And in us ordinary men there is some good. It wants finding, that
is all. We are not so commonplace as you think us. Even your Jack,
fond of his dinner, his conversation four-cornered by the Sporting
Press--yes, I agree he is not interesting, as he sits snoring in the
easy-chair; but, believe it or not, there are the makings of a great
hero in Jack, if Fate would but be kinder to him, and shake him out
of his ease.
Dr. Jekyll contained beneath his ample waist-coat not two egos, but
three--not only Hyde but another, a greater than Jekyll--a man as
near to the angels as Hyde was to the demons. These well-fed City
men, these Gaiety Johnnies, these plough-boys, apothecaries,
thieves! within each one lies hidden the hero, did Fate, the
sculptor, choose to use his chisel. That little drab we have
noticed now and then, our way taking us often past the end of the
court, there was nothing by which to distinguish her. She was not
over-clean, could use coarse language on occasion--just the spawn of
the streets: take care lest the cloak of our child should brush
her.
One morning the district Coroner, not, generally speaking, a poet
himself, but an adept at discovering poetry buried under unlikely
rubbish-heaps, tells us more about her.
Pages:
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221