Does man ever reform? Balzac says he doesn't. So far as my experience goes, it agrees with that of Balzac--a fact the admirers of that author are at liberty to make what use of they please.
When I was young and accustomed to take my views of life from people who were older than myself, and who knew better, so they said, Iused to believe that he did. Examples of "reformed characters" were frequently pointed out to me--indeed, our village, situate a few miles from a small seaport town, seemed to be peculiarly rich in such. They were, from all accounts, including their own, persons who had formerly behaved with quite unnecessary depravity, and who, at the time I knew them, appeared to be going to equally objectionable lengths in the opposite direction. They invariably belonged to one of two classes, the low-spirited or the aggressively unpleasant. They said, and I believed, that they were happy; but Icould not help reflecting how very sad they must have been before they were happy.
One of them, a small, meek-eyed old man with a piping voice, had been exceptionally wild in his youth. What had been his special villainy I could never discover. People responded to my inquiries by saying that he had been "Oh, generally bad," and increased my longing for detail by adding that little boys ought not to want to know about such things. From their tone and manner I assumed that he must have been a pirate at the very least, and regarded him with awe, not unmingled with secret admiration.
Whatever it was, he had been saved from it by his wife, a bony lady of unprepossessing appearance, but irreproachable views.
One day he called at our house for some purpose or other, and, being left alone with him for a few minutes, I took the opportunity of interviewing him personally on the subject.
"You were very wicked once, weren't you?" I said, seeking by emphasis on the "once" to mitigate what I felt might be the disagreeable nature of the question.
To my intense surprise, a gleam of shameful glory lit up his wizened face, and a sound which I tried to think a sigh, but which sounded like a chuckle, escaped his lips.
"Ay," he replied; "I've been a bit of a spanker in my time."The term "spanker" in such connection puzzled me. I had been hitherto led to regard a spanker as an eminently conscientious person, especially where the short-comings of other people were concerned; a person who laboured for the good of others. That the word could also be employed to designate a sinful party was a revelation to me.
"But you are good now, aren't you?" I continued, dismissing further reflection upon the etymology of "spanker" to a more fitting occasion.
"Ay, ay," he answered, his countenance resuming its customary aspect of resigned melancholy. "I be a brand plucked from the burning, Ibe. There beant much wrong wi' Deacon Sawyers, now.""And it was your wife that made you good, wasn't it?" I persisted, determined, now that I had started this investigation, to obtain confirmation at first hand on all points.
At the mention of his wife his features became suddenly transformed.
Glancing hurriedly round, to make sure, apparently, that no one but myself was within hearing, he leaned across and hissed these words into my ear--I have never forgotten them, there was a ring of such evident sincerity about them -"I'd like to skin her, I'd like to skin her alive."It struck me, even in the light of my then limited judgment, as an unregenerate wish; and thus early my faith in the possibility of man's reformation received the first of those many blows that have resulted in shattering it.
Nature, whether human or otherwise, was not made to be reformed.
You can develop, you can check, but you cannot alter it.
You can take a small tiger and train it to sit on a hearthrug, and to lap milk, and so long as you provide it with hearthrugs to lie on and sufficient milk to drink, it will purr and behave like an affectionate domestic pet. But it is a tiger, with all a tiger's instincts, and its progeny to the end of all time will be tigers.
In the same way, you can take an ape and develop it through a few thousand generations until it loses its tail and becomes an altogether superior ape. You can go on developing it through still a few more thousands of generations until it gathers to itself out of the waste vapours of eternity an intellect and a soul, by the aid of which it is enabled to keep the original apish nature more or less under control.
But the ape is still there, and always will be, and every now and again, when Constable Civilisation turns his back for a moment, as during "Spanish Furies," or "September massacres," or Western mob rule, it creeps out and bites and tears at quivering flesh, or plunges its hairy arms elbow deep in blood, or dances round a burning nigger.
I knew a man once--or, rather, I knew of a man--who was a confirmed drunkard. He became and continued a drunkard, not through weakness, but through will. When his friends remonstrated with him, he told them to mind their own business, and to let him mind his. If he saw any reason for not getting drunk he would give it up. Meanwhile he liked getting drunk, and he meant to get drunk as often as possible.
He went about it deliberately, and did it thoroughly. For nearly ten years, so it was reported, he never went to bed sober. This may be an exaggeration--it would be a singular report were it not--but it can be relied upon as sufficiently truthful for all practical purposes.
Then there came a day when he did see a reason for not getting drunk. He signed no pledge, he took no oath. He said, "I will never touch another drop of drink," and for twenty-six years he kept his word.
At the end of that time a combination of circumstances occurred that made life troublesome to him, so that he desired to be rid of it altogether. He was a man accustomed, when he desired a thing within his reach, to stretch out his hand and take it. He reviewed the case calmly, and decided to commit suicide.