“Death is not the worst fate that may befall a man,” continued Harrington. “If to kill a man were to end his life, we might well hold our hands. But the soul survives the blow that slays the body.”
“And to kill a man is only to shell him, Emily,” said Muriel with a smile.
“Mercy!” exclaimed Emily, laughing, “what a couple of Robespierres!”
“Seriously, now,” said Harrington, “I think Muriel is right. A killed man is a shelled man, and not a dead man. ‘Where shall we bury you?’ asked the friends around the dying Socrates. And the escaping soul replied, ‘Wherever you please, if you can catch me.’ But with regard to this matter. If I believed in free will and moral responsibility, and all the doctrines professedly accepted by the mass of my fellow-citizens, I should hold that, on the principle of justice, we had a right to terminate the life of a man who was willfully using it to the injury of his fellow-creatures. For I agree with Lord Bacon that men without goodness of nature are but a nobler kind of vermin. But, as I happen to think that such men are the necessary product of an unscientific order of society, and that society is responsible for them and their misdeeds, I could only kill them at the cry of a terrible expediency, not to punish them, but simply to arrest their mischief. At the same time I go with Shakespeare, rather to ‘prevent the fiend’ than to kill the fiend. I would not kill a rattlesnake lying harmlessly in the sun, simply because he is a rattlesnake, and may bite to-morrow. But if he coils to strike, I slay him, purely as a measure of safety, not in hate, not forgetting that forces external to him organized him for malice and venom. So, too, with the nobler vermin—the human reptiles. I do not hate them; I pity them. I do not forget that they are a consequence, and not self-caused. But I cannot let them flesh their fangs in the innocent, when the saving mercy of a death-blow can rescue their blameless victims to lives of human use and accomplishment. When such men as Lafitte come here to hunt the poor, I baffle and drive them away if I can, and, as a last resort, I kill them. That is not hate—it is love. It is stern love, but it is love. Wo to the civilization that makes it necessary! Wo to the state that suffers an injury to be done to the humblest man or woman, or leaves his or her protection to the chance charity of the private citizen! And treble wo to the government that gives despotic power to ruffians, and arms and guards them in their crime against mankind with the prestige and forms of civil law!”
Harrington ceased, and they all sat in silence with brooding faces.
“Well, I trust that this wretch may never trouble Boston,” said Emily, at length, with a sigh.
“I trust not,” replied Harrington. “He is shrewd and subtle though, and I have, I own, an anxious foreboding that he will come this way. I am sorry I wrote that letter. You observed the underlined sentence in his reply, didn’t you? It is curious that he should have so readily conjectured that the letter was sent to Jo House to mail.”
“Very curious,” responded Emily.
“Here’s North Russell street,” said Harrington. “I’ll leave you, and rush home, for I have my article to finish.”
“Harrington—whisper,” said Muriel, bending her face toward him with a charming smile.