Only
a pure heart can understand, and a pure heart is one that sends out ready
hands. I knew perfectly well what I ought to do--namely, to shut that
drawer with the back of my head, then get up and do something, and forget
the shining stone I had seen betwixt my uncle's finger and thumb; yet
there I sat debating whether I was not at liberty to do in my uncle's
room what he had not told me not to do.
I will not weary my reader with any further description of the evil path
by which I arrived at the evil act. To myself it is pain even now to tell
that I got on my feet, saw a blaze of shining things, banged-to the
drawer, and knew that Eve had eaten the apple. The eyes of my
consciousness were opened to the evil in me, through the evil done by me.
Evil seemed now a part of myself, so that nevermore should I get rid of
it. It may be easy for one regarding it from afar, through the telescope
only of a book, to exclaim, "Such a little thing!" but it was I who did
it, and not another! it was I, and only I, who could know what I had
done, and it was not a little thing! That peep into my uncle's drawer
lies in my soul the type of sin. Never have I done anything wrong with
such a clear assurance that I was doing wrong, as when I did the thing I
had taken most pains to reason out as right.
Like one stunned by an electric shock, I had neither feeling nor care
left for anything.
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