Let a man do what he
will, if he knows he's to bear the punishment himself, he isn't half so
bad as a mean selfish coward as makes things easy t' himself and knows
all the while the punishment 'll fall on somebody else."
"There again you partly deceive yourself, Adam. There is no sort of
wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can't
isolate yourself and say that the evil which is in you shall not spread.
Men's lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they
breathe: evil spreads as necessarily as disease. I know, I feel the
terrible extent of suffering this sin of Arthur's has caused to others;
but so does every sin cause suffering to others besides those who commit
it. An act of vengeance on your part against Arthur would simply be
another evil added to those we are suffering under: you could not bear
the punishment alone; you would entail the worst sorrows on every one
who loves you. You would have committed an act of blind fury that would
leave all the present evils just as they were and add worse evils to
them. You may tell me that you meditate no fatal act of vengeance, but
the feeling in your mind is what gives birth to such actions, and as
long as you indulge it, as long as you do not see that to fix your mind
on Arthur's punishment is revenge, and not justice, you are in danger
of being led on to the commission of some great wrong.
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