by Mark Twain
somepoor little insignificant trifle or other--destruction catch the lotof them, I say! I would trade mine for the smallpox and seven kinds ofconsumption, and be glad of the chance. Now tell me, why is it that aconscience can't haul a man over the coals once, for an offense, andthen let him alone? Why is it that it wants to keep on pegging at him,day and night and night and day, week in and week out, forever and ever,about the same old thing? There is no sense in that, and no reason init. I think a conscience that will act like that is meaner than the verydirt itself."
"Well, WE like it; that suffices."
"Do you do it with the honest intent to improve a man?"
That question produced a sarcastic smile, and this reply:
"No, sir. Excuse me. We do it simply because it is 'business.' It isour trade. The purpose of it is to improve the man, but we are merelydisinterested agents. We are appointed by authority, and haven'tanything to say in the matter. We obey orders and leave the consequenceswhere they belong. But I am willing to admit this much: we do crowdthe orders a trifle when we get a chance, which is most of the time. Weenjoy it. We are instructed to remind a man a few times of an error; andI don't mind acknowledging that we try to give pretty good measure. Andwhen we get hold of a man of a peculiarly sensitive nature, oh, butwe do haze him! I have consciences to come all the way from China andRussia to see a person of that kind put through his paces, on a specialoccasion. Why, I knew a man of that sort who had accidentally crippleda mulatto baby; the news went abroad, and I wish you may never commitanother sin if the consciences didn't flock from all over the earthto enjoy the fun and help his master exorcise him. That man walked thefloor in torture for forty-eight hours, without eating or sleeping, andthen blew his brains out. The child was perfectly well again in threeweeks."
"Well, you are a precious crew, not to put it too strong. I think Ibegin to see now why you have always been a trifle inconsistent with me.In your anxiety to get all the juice you can out of a sin, you makea man repent of it in three or four different ways. For instance, youfound fault with me for lying to that tramp, and I suffered over that.But it was only yesterday that I told a tramp the square truth, to wit,that, it being regarded as bad citizenship to encourage vagrancy, Iwould give him nothing. What did you do then: Why, you made me say tomyself, 'Ah, it would have been so much kinder and more blameless toease him off with a little white lie, and send him away feeling that ifhe could not have bread, the gentle treatment was at least something tobe grateful for!' Well, I suffered all day about that. Three days beforeI had fed a tramp, and fed him freely, supposing it a virtuous act.Straight off you said, 'Oh, false citizen, to have fed a tramp!' and Isuffered as usual. I gave a tramp work; you objected to it--after thecontract was made, of course; you never speak up beforehand. Next, Irefused a tramp work; you objected to that. Next, I proposed to kill atramp; you kept me awake all night, oozing remorse at every pore. SureI was going to be right this time, I sent the next tramp away with mybenediction; and I wish you may live as long as I do, if you didn't makeme smart all night again because I didn't kill him. Is there any way ofsatisfying that malignant invention which is called a conscience?"
"Ha, ha! this is luxury! Go on!"
"But come, now, answer me that question. Is there any way?"
"Well, none that I propose to tell you, my son. Ass! I don't care whatact you may turn your hand to, I can straightway whisper a word in yourear and make you think you have committed a dreadful meanness. It is mybusiness--and my joy--to make you repent of everything you do. If I havefooled away any opportunities it was not intentional; I beg to assureyou it was not intentional!"
"Don't worry; you haven't missed a trick that I know of. I never did athing in all my life, virtuous or otherwise, that I didn't repent of intwenty-four hours. In church last Sunday I listened to a charity sermon.My first impulse was to give three hundred and fifty dollars; I repentedof that and reduced it a hundred; repented of that and reduced itanother hundred; repented of that and reduced it another hundred;repented of that and reduced the remaining fifty to twenty-five;repented of that and came down to fifteen; repented of that and droppedto two dollars and a half; when the plate came around at last, Irepented once more and contributed ten cents. Well, when I got home, Idid wish to goodness I had that ten cents back again! You never didlet me get through a charity sermon without having something to sweatabout."
"Oh, and I never shall, I never shall. You can always depend on me."
"I think so. Many and many's the restless night I've wanted to take youby the neck. If I could only get hold of you now!"
"Yes, no doubt. But I am not an ass; I am only the saddle of an ass. Butgo on, go on. You entertain me more than I like to confess."
"I am glad of that. (You will not mind my lying a little, to keep inpractice.) Look here; not to be too personal, I think you are about theshabbiest and most contemptible little shriveled-up reptile that can beimagined. I am grateful enough that you are invisible to other people,for I should die with shame to be seen with such a mildewed monkey of aconscience as you are. Now if you were five or six feet high, and--"
"Oh, come! who is to blame?"
"I don't know."
"Why, you are; nobody else."
"Confound you, I wasn't consulted about your personal appearance."
"I don't care, you had a good deal to do with it, nevertheless. When youwere eight or nine years old, I was seven feet high, and as pretty as apicture."
"I wish you had died young! So you have grown the wrong way, have you?"
"Some of us grow one way and some the other. You had a large conscienceonce; if you've a small conscience now I reckon there are reasons forit. However, both of us are to blame, you and I. You see, you used to beconscientious about a great many things; morbidly so, I may say. It wasa great many years ago. You probably do not remember it now. Well, Itook a great interest in my work, and I so enjoyed the anguish whichcertain pet sins of yours afflicted you with that I kept pelting at youuntil I rather overdid the matter. You began to rebel. Of course I beganto lose ground, then, and shrivel a little--diminish in stature, getmoldy, and grow deformed. The more I weakened, the more stubbornly youfastened on to those particular sins; till at last the places on myperson that represent those vices became as callous as shark-skin. Takesmoking, for instance. I played that card a little too long, and I lost.When people plead with you at this late day to quit that vice, that oldcallous place seems to enlarge and cover me all over like a shirt ofmail. It exerts a mysterious, smothering effect; and presently I, yourfaithful hater, your devoted Conscience, go sound asleep! Sound? It isno name for it. I couldn't hear it thunder at such a time. You have somefew other vices--perhaps eighty, or maybe ninety--that affect me in muchthe same way."
"This is flattering; you must be asleep a good part of your time."
"Yes, of late years. I should be asleep all the time but for the help Iget."
"Who helps you?"
"Other consciences. Whenever a person whose conscience I am acquaintedwith tries to plead with you about the vices you are callous to, I getmy friend to give his client a pang concerning some villainy of hisown, and that shuts off his meddling and starts him off to hunt personalconsolation. My field of usefulness is about trimmed down to tramps,budding authoresses, and that line of goods now; but don't youworry--I'll harry you on theirs while they last! Just you put your trustin me."
"I think I can. But if you had only been good enough to mentionthese facts some thirty years ago, I should have turned my particularattention to sin, and I think that by this time I should not only havehad you pretty permanently asleep on the entire list of human vices, butreduced to the size of a homeopathic pill, at that. That is about thestyle of conscience I am pining for. If I only had you shrunk you downto a homeopathic pill, and could get my hands on you, would I put you ina glass case for a keepsake? No, sir. I would give you to a yellow dog!That is where you ought to be--you and all your tribe. You are not fitto be in society, in my opinion. Now another questi
on. Do you know agood many consciences in this section?"
"Plenty of them."
"I would give anything to see some of them! Could you bring them here?And would they be visible to me?"
"Certainly not."
"I suppose I ought to have known that without asking. But no matter,you can describe them. Tell me about my neighbor Thompson's conscience,please."
"Very well. I know him intimately; have known him many years. I knew himwhen he was eleven feet high and of a faultless figure. But he is verypasty and tough and misshapen now, and hardly ever interests himselfabout anything. As to his present size--well, he sleeps in a cigar-box."
"Likely enough.
