 said I, »X--, however singular a study to some, is yet human, and
knowledge of the world assuredly implies the knowledge of human nature, and in
most of its varieties.«
    »Yes, but a superficial knowledge of it, serving ordinary purposes. But for
anything deeper, I am not certain whether to know the world and to know human
nature be not two distinct branches of knowledge, which while they may coexist
in the same heart, yet either may exist with little or nothing of the other.
Nay, in an average man of the world, his constant rubbing with it blunts that
fine spiritual insight indispensable to the understanding of the essential in
certain exceptional characters, whether evil ones or good. In a matter of some
importance I have seen a girl wind an old lawyer about her little finger. Nor
was it the dotage of senile love. Nothing of the sort. But he knew law better
than he knew the girl's heart. Coke and Blackstone hardly shed so much light
into obscure spiritual places as the Hebrew prophets. And who were they? Mostly
recluses.«
    At the time my inexperience was such that I did not quite see the drift of
all this. It may be that I see it now. And, indeed, if that lexicon which is
based on Holy Writ were any longer popular, one might with less difficulty
define and denominate certain phenomenal men. As it is, one must turn to some
authority not liable to the charge of being tinctured with the Biblical element.
    In a list of definitions included in the authentic translation of Plato, a
list attributed to him, occurs this: Natural Depravity: a depravity according to
nature. A definition which though savouring of Calvinism, by no means involves
Calvin's dogma as to total mankind. Evidently its intent makes it applicable but
to individuals. Not many are the examples of this depravity which the gallows
and jail supply. At any rate, for notable instances, - since these have no
vulgar alloy of the brute in them, but invariably are dominated by
intellectuality, - one must go elsewhere. Civilisation, especially if of the
austerer sort, is auspicious to it. It folds itself in the mantle of
respectability. It has its certain negative virtues serving as silent
auxiliaries. It is not going too far to say that it is without vices or small
sins. There is a phenomenal pride in it that excludes them from anything - never
mercenary or avaricious. In short, the depravity here meant partakes nothing of
the sordid or sensual. It is serious, but free from acerbity.
