" I persisted,
determined, now that I had started this investigation, to obtain
confirmation at first hand on all points.

At the mention of his wife his features became suddenly transformed.
Glancing hurriedly round, to make sure, apparently, that no one but
myself was within hearing, he leaned across and hissed these words into
my ear--I have never forgotten them, there was a ring of such evident
sincerity about them--

"I'd like to skin her, I'd like to skin her alive."

It struck me, even in the light of my then limited judgment, as an
unregenerate wish; and thus early my faith in the possibility of man's
reformation received the first of those many blows that have resulted in
shattering it.

Nature, whether human or otherwise, was not made to be reformed. You can
develop, you can check, but you cannot alter it.

You can take a small tiger and train it to sit on a hearthrug, and to lap
milk, and so long as you provide it with hearthrugs to lie on and
sufficient milk to drink, it will purr and behave like an affectionate
domestic pet. But it is a tiger, with all a tiger's instincts, and its
progeny to the end of all time will be tigers.

In the same way, you can take an ape and develop it through a few
thousand generations until it loses its tail and becomes an altogether
superior ape. You can go on developing it through still a few more
thousands of generations until it gathers to itself out of the waste
vapours of eternity an intellect and a soul, by the aid of which it is
enabled to keep the original apish nature more or less under control.

But the ape is still there, and always will be, and every now and again,
when Constable Civilisation turns his back for a moment, as during
"Spanish Furies," or "September massacres," or Western mob rule, it
creeps out and bites and tears at quivering flesh, or plunges its hairy
arms elbow deep in blood, or dances round a burning nigger.

I knew a man once--or, rather, I knew of a man--who was a confirmed
drunkard. He became and continued a drunkard, not through weakness, but
through will. When his friends remonstrated with him, he told them to
mind their own business, and to let him mind his. If he saw any reason
for not getting drunk he would give it up. Meanwhile he liked getting
drunk, and he meant to get drunk as often as possible.

He went about it deliberately, and did it thoroughly. For nearly ten
years, so it was reported, he never went to bed sober.