SOLD FOR NAUGHT. 189 he prayed for any chastisement rather than that of detection, any stroke in preference to open shame. This was the one thing which he felt he could not bear. Even now, as conscience strongly suggested, he might make, by private confession to his tutor, or at any rate by not using the knowledge he had thus acquired, the only reparation which was still in his power. But it was a hard thing for conscience to ask -too hard for poor Kennedy's weakness. Much of the paper, as he saw at once, he could very easily have answered from his previous general knowledge and scholarship; so easily, that he now felt convinced that he might have done quite enough of it to secure his first class. His sin, then, had been useless, quite useless, worse than useless to him. Was he obliged also to make it positively injurious? was he to put himself in a worse position than if he had never committed it? After all the punishment which the sin had brought with it, was he also to lose, in consequence of it, the very advantage, the very enjoyment, for the sake of which he had harbored the temptation? It was too much-too much to expect. The night before the Eschylus examination he began to read up the general information on the subject, and he intended to do it quite as if he were unaware of what the actual questions were to be. But it was the merest self-deception. Each question was branded in fiery letters on his recollection, and he found that, as read, he was skipping involuntarily every topic which he knew had not been touched on in Mr. Grayson's paper. Oh the sense of hypocrisy with which he eagerly 190 THE SINS OF GENIUS. seized the paper next morning, and read it over as though unaware of its contents! Julian could not help observing that, during the last few days, Kennedy's spirits had suffered a change. His old mirth came only in fitful bursts, and he was often moody and silent; but Julian attributed it to anxiety for the result of the examination, and doubt whether he should be allowed by his father to make one of the long anticipated party in the foreign tour. Kennedy dared not admit any one into his confidence, but the last evening, before they went down, he turned the conversation, as he sat at tea in Owen's room, to the topic of character, and the faults of great men, and the aberrations of the good. "Tell me, Owen," he said, "as you're a philosopher -tell me what difference the faults of good men make in our estimate of them?" "In our real estimate," said Owen, "I fancy we often adopt, half unconsciously, the maxim, that 'the king can do no wrong'-that the true hero is all heroic." "Yes," said Kennedy; "but when some one calls your attention to the fact of their failings, and makes you look at them-what then?" "Why, in nine cases out of ten, the faults are grossly exaggerated and misrepresented, and I should try to prove that such is the fact; and for the rest,-why no man is perfect." "You shirk the question, though," said Lillyston; "for you have to make very tremendous allowance indeed for some of the very best of men." "As, for instance?" A SINFUL SAINT. "As for instance, King David." 191 "Oh don't take Scripture instances," said Suton, an excellent fellow whom they all liked, though he took very different views of things from their own. "Why not, in heaven's name?" said Kennedy; "if they suit, they are good because so thoroughly familiar.” "Yes, but somehow one judges them differently." "I dare say you do,-in fact, I know you do; but you've no business to. I maintain that even according to Moses, King David deserved a felon's death. Murder and adultery were crimes every bit as heinous then as they are now. Yet David, this most human of heroes, was the man after God's own heart. Solve me the problem." "Practically," said Lillyston; "I believe one follows a genuine instinct in determining not to look at the spots, however wide or dark they are, upon the "And in accepting theoretically old Strabo's grand dictum, ουχ οἷον τε ἀγαθόν γενέσθαι ποιητην μὴ πρότερον γενηθέντα ἄνδρα ἀγαθόν. Eh ?” "As Coleridge was so fond of doing," said Julian. "Ay, he needed the theory," said Suton. "Hush!" said Julian, "I can't stand any such Philadelphus hints about Coleridge. By-the-by, Owen, you might have quoted a still more apt illustration from Seneca, who criticises Livy for saying, 'Vir ingenii magni magis quam boni,' with the remark, 'Non potest illud separari; aut et bonum erit aut nec magnum.' Mr. Admer, who was one of the circle, chuckled inwardly at the discussion. "I was once," he said, "at a party, where a lady sang one of Byron's Hebrew melo 192 "GOD, NOT MAN, IS THE JUdge.” dies. At the close of it, a young clergyman sighed deeply, and, with an air of intense self-satisfaction, observed, 'Ah! I was wondering where poor Byron is now!' What should you have all said to that?" 66 Detesting Byron's personal character, I should have said that the very wonder was a piece of idle and meddling presumption," said Owen. "And I should have answered that the Judge will do right," said Suton, reverently. "Or, if he wanted a text, 'Who art thou that judgest another?" said Lillyston, contemptuously. "And I," said Julian, "should have said, "Let feeble hands iniquitously just, Rake up the relics of the sinful dust, Let Ignorance mock the pang it cannot heal, "And I," said Kennedy, "should have been vehemently inclined to tweak the man's nose." "But what did you say, Mr. Admer ?" asked Lilly ston. "I answered a fool according to his folly. I threw up my eyes, and said, 'Ah, where indeed! what a good thing it is that you and I, sir, are not as that publican.' "I should think that he skewered you with a glance, didn't he?" said Kennedy. "No, he was going to bore me with an argument, which I declined." "But you've all cut the question: tell me, now, supposing you had known King David, should you TOUCHED WITH INFIRMITY. 193 have thought worse of him, should you have been cool to him—in a word, should you have cut him after his fall?" "I think not-I mean, I shouldn't have cut him," said Owen. "And yet you would have treated so any ordinary friend." "Not necessarily. But remember, that the two best things happened to David which could possibly happen to a man who has committed a crime." "Namely ?" 66 'Speedy detection," said Lillyston. "And prompt punishment," added Julian; "but for these, there's no knowing what would have become of him." Unsatisfactory as the discussion had been, yet those words rang hauntingly in Kennedy's ears; he could not forget them. During all those first days of happy travel they were with him; with him as they strolled down the gay and lighted Boulevards of Paris; with him beside the quaint fountains of Berne, and the green rushing of the Rhine at Basle; with him amid the scent of pine-cones, and under the dark green umbrage of forest boughs; with him when he caught his first glimpse of the everlasting mountains, and plunged into the clear brightness of the sapphire lake -the thought of speedy detection and prompt punishIt was no small pleasure to partake in Violet's happiness, and mark the ever fresh delight that lent such a bright look to Cyril's face; but before Kennedy, in the midst of enjoyment, the memory of a dis ment. |