And, as the shades of the
      second evening came on, I grew wearied unto death, and, stopping fully in
      front of the wanderer, gazed at him steadfastly in the face. He noticed
      me not, but resumed his solemn walk, while I, ceasing to follow, remained
      absorbed in contemplation. “This old man,” I said at length,
      “is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. _He is the man of the crowd._ It will be in vain to follow; for I
      shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds. The worst heart of the
      world is a grosser book than the ‘Hortulus Animæ,’ {*1} and
      perhaps it is but one of the great mercies of God that ‘_er lasst
      sich nicht lesen._’”


      {*1} The “_Hortulus Animæ cum Oratiunculis Aliquibus Superadditis_”
       of Grünninger. NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD


      A Tale With a Moral. “_Con tal que las costumbres de un autor_,” says Don Thomas de las
      Torres, in the preface to his “Amatory Poems” _“sean puras y castas,
      importo muy poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras”_—meaning,
      in plain English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure
      personally, it signifies nothing what are the morals of his books. We
      presume that Don Thomas is now in Purgatory for the assertion. It would be
      a clever thing, too, in the way of poetical justice, to keep him there
      until his “Amatory Poems” get out of print, or are laid definitely upon
      the shelf through lack of readers. Every fiction should have a moral; and,
      what is more to the purpose, the critics have discovered that every
      fiction has. Philip Melanchthon, some time ago, wrote a commentary upon
      the “Batrachomyomachia,” and proved that the poet’s object was to excite a
      distaste for sedition. Pierre la Seine, going a step farther, shows that
      the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and
      drinking. Just so, too, Jacobus Hugo has satisfied himself that, by
      Euenis, Homer meant to insinuate John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther;
      by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general; and, by the Harpies, the Dutch. Our more modern Scholiasts are equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a
      hidden meaning in “The Antediluvians,” a parable in Powhatan, “new views
      in Cock Robin,” and transcendentalism in “Hop O’ My Thumb.” In short, it
      has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound
      design. Thus to authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for
      example, need have no care of his moral. It is there—that is to say,
      it is somewhere—and the moral and the critics can take care of
      themselves. When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended,
      and all that he did not intend, will be brought to light, in the “Dial,”
       or the “Down-Easter,” together with all that he ought to have intended,
      and the rest that he clearly meant to intend:—so that it will all
      come very straight in the end. There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by
      certain ignoramuses—that I have never written a moral tale, or, in
      more precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics
      predestined to bring me out, and develop my morals:—that is the
      secret. By and by the “North American Quarterly Humdrum” will make them
      ashamed of their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution—by
      way of mitigating the accusations against me—I offer the sad history
      appended,—a history about whose obvious moral there can be no
      question whatever, since he who runs may read it in the large capitals
      which form the title of the tale. I should have credit for this
      arrangement—a far wiser one than that of La Fontaine and others, who
      reserve the impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus
      sneak it in at the fag end of their fables. _Defuncti injuriâ ne afficiantur_ was a law of the twelve tables, and _De
      mortuis nil nisi bonum_ is an excellent injunction—even if the dead
      in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design,
      therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad
      dog, it is true, and a dog’s death it was that he died; but he himself was
      not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in his
      mother. She did her best in the way of flogging him while an infant—for
      duties to her well-regulated mind were always pleasures, and babies,
      like tough steaks, or the modern Greek olive trees, are invariably the
      better for beating—but, poor woman! she had the misfortune to be
      left-handed, and a child flogged left-handedly had better be left
      unflogged. The world revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a
      baby from left to right. If each blow in the proper direction drives an
      evil propensity out, it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks
      its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at Toby’s chastisements,
      and, even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was
      getting worse and worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in my
      eyes, that there was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when he
      had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one might have
      mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been produced beyond
      that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand it no longer,
      but went down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my voice, made
      prophecy of his ruin. The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age he
      used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At six
      months, I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven months he was in
      the constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At eight
      months he peremptorily refused to put his signature to the Temperance
      pledge. Thus he went on increasing in iniquity, month after month, until,
      at the close of the first year, he not only insisted upon wearing
      moustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and
      for backing his assertions by bets. Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I had
      predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had “grown with
      his growth and strengthened with his strength,” so that, when he came to
      be a man, he could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding it with
      a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually laid wagers—no. I will
      do my friend the justice to say that he would as soon have laid eggs. With
      him the thing was a mere formula—nothing more. His expressions on
      this head had no meaning attached to them whatever.