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- 4475
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4400
- text
- indignantly said: "Is it not too bad, sir, that yonder rascal should lie
so?"
"Charity never faileth, my good sir," was the reply. "The vice of this
unfortunate is pardonable. Consider, he lies not out of wantonness."
"Not out of wantonness. I never heard more wanton lies. In one breath to
tell you what would appear to be his true story, and, in the next, away
and falsify it."
"For all that, I repeat he lies not out of wantonness. A ripe
philosopher, turned out of the great Sorbonne of hard times, he thinks
that woes, when told to strangers for money, are best sugared. Though
the inglorious lock-jaw of his knee-pans in a wet dungeon is a far more
pitiable ill than to have been crippled at glorious Contreras, yet he is
of opinion that this lighter and false ill shall attract, while the
heavier and real one might repel."
"Nonsense; he belongs to the Devil's regiment; and I have a great mind
to expose him."
"Shame upon you. Dare to expose that poor unfortunate, and by
heaven--don't you do it, sir."
Noting something in his manner, the other thought it more prudent to
retire than retort. By-and-by, the cripple came back, and with glee,
having reaped a pretty good harvest.
"There," he laughed, "you know now what sort of soldier I am."
"Aye, one that fights not the stupid Mexican, but a foe worthy your
tactics--Fortune!"
"Hi, hi!" clamored the cripple, like a fellow in the pit of a sixpenny
theatre, then said, "don't know much what you meant, but it went off
well."
This over, his countenance capriciously put on a morose ogreness. To
kindly questions he gave no kindly answers. Unhandsome notions were
thrown out about "free Ameriky," as he sarcastically called his country.
These seemed to disturb and pain the herb-doctor, who, after an interval
of thoughtfulness, gravely addressed him in these words:
"You, my Worthy friend, to my concern, have reflected upon the
government under which you live and suffer. Where is your patriotism?
Where your gratitude? True, the charitable may find something in your
case, as you put it, partly to account for such reflections as coming
from you. Still, be the facts how they may, your reflections are none
the less unwarrantable. Grant, for the moment, that your experiences are
as you give them; in which case I would admit that government might be
thought to have more or less to do with what seems undesirable in them.
But it is never to be forgotten that human government, being subordinate
to the divine, must needs, therefore, in its degree, partake of the
characteristics of the divine. That is, while in general efficacious to
happiness, the world's law may yet, in some cases, have, to the eye of
reason, an unequal operation, just as, in the same imperfect view, some
inequalities may appear in the operations of heaven's law; nevertheless,
to one who has a right confidence, final benignity is, in every
instance, as sure with the one law as the other. I expound the point at
some length, because these are the considerations, my poor fellow,
which, weighed as they merit, will enable you to sustain with unimpaired
trust the apparent calamities which are yours."
"What do you talk your hog-latin to me for?" cried the cripple, who,
throughout the address, betrayed the most illiterate obduracy; and, with
an incensed look, anew he swung himself.
Glancing another way till the spasm passed, the other continued:
"Charity marvels not that you should be somewhat hard of conviction, my
friend, since you, doubtless, believe yourself hardly dealt by; but
forget not that those who are loved are chastened."
"Mustn't chasten them too much, though, and too long, because their skin
and heart get hard, and feel neither pain nor tickle."
- title
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