to be excused. I believe if I had the management of things, there would
hardly be a murder from year's end to year's end. In fact I'm for virtue,
and goodness, and all that sort of thing. And two instances I'll give you
to what an extremity I carry my virtue. The first may seem a trifle; but
not if you knew my nephew, who was certainly born to be hanged, and would
have been so long ago, but for my restraining voice. He is horribly
ambitious, and thinks himself a man of cultivated taste in most branches of
murder, whereas, in fact, he has not one idea on the subject, but such
as he has stolen from me. This is so well known, that the club has twice
blackballed him, though every indulgence was shown to him as my relative.
People came to me and said--"Now really, President, we would do much to
serve a relative of yours. But still, what can be said? You know yourself
that he'll disgrace us. If we were to elect him, why, the next thing we
should hear of would be some vile butcherly murder, by way of justifying
our choice. And what sort of a concern would it be? You know, as well as we
do, that it would be a disgraceful affair, more worthy of the shambles than
of an artist's _attelier_. He would fall upon some great big man, some huge
farmer returning drunk from a fair. There would be plenty of blood, and
_that_ he would expect us to take in lieu of taste, finish, scenical
grouping. Then, again, how would he tool? Why, most probably with a cleaver
and a couple of paving stones: so that the whole _coup d'oeil_ would remind
you rather of some hideous ogre or cyclops, than of the delicate operator
of the nineteenth century." The picture was drawn with the hand of truth;
_that_ I could not but allow, and, as to personal feelings in the matter, I
dismissed them from the first. The next morning I spoke to my nephew--I was
delicately situated, as you see, but I determined that no consideration
should induce me to flinch from my duty. "John," said I, "you seem to me to
have taken an erroneous view of life and its duties. Pushed on by ambition,
you are dreaming rather of what it might be glorious to attempt, than what
it would be possible for you to accomplish. Believe me, it is not necessary