The
Judge was breaking; that brave life was beginning to sink and
totter toward its fall and dissolution. There were moments when
the cheerfulness, which had never failed him in the midst of trial,
failed him now when there was none; when the ancient springs of
strength ceased to run and he was discovered to be feeble.
Sometimes he no longer read his morning newspaper; he would sit for
long periods in the front door of his office, looking out into the
street and caring not who passed, not even returning salutations:
what was the use of saluting the human race impartially? Or going
into the rear office, he would reread pages and chapters of what at
different times in his life had been his favorite books: "Rabelais"
and "The Decameron" when he was young; "Don Quixote" later, and
"Faust"; "Clarissa" and "Tom Jones" now and then; and Shakespeare
always; and those poems of Burns that tell sad truths; and the
account of the man in Thackeray who went through so much that was
large and at the end of life was brought down to so much that was
low. He seemed more and more to feel the need of grasping through
books the hand of erring humanity. And from day to day his
conversations with Barbee began to take more the form of counsels
about life and duty, about the ideals and mistakes and virtues and
weaknesses in men. He had a good deal to say about the ethics of
character in the court room and in the street.

One afternoon Barbee very thoughtfully asked him a question:
"Uncle, I have wanted to know why you always defended and never
prosecuted. The State is supposed to stand for justice, and the
State is the accuser; in always defending the accused and so in
working against the State, have you not always worked against
justice?"

The Judge sat with his face turned away and spoke as he sat--very
gravely and quietly: "I always defended because the State can
punish only the accused, and the accused is never the only
criminal. In every crime there are three criminals. The first
criminal is the Origin of Evil. I don't know what the Origin of
Evil is, or who he is; but if I could have dragged the Origin of
Evil into the court room, I should have been glad to try to have it
hanged, or have him hanged. I should have liked to argue the
greatest of all possible criminal cases: the case of the Common
People vs. the Devil--so nominated. The second criminal is all
that coworked with the accused as involved in his nature, in his
t