Conscience That Makes Cowards

It has been my opinion for some time that conscience is an unreliable guide. The feminine conscience especially is too much governed by conventions. Recently circumstances have involved me in a course of conduct which reason tells me is perhaps a trifle undignified, but comparatively blameless. Conscience, however, judges by the form rather than by the spirit, and sternly pronounces me a wretch. I struggle in vain to defy her. While I honestly believe myself to have done nothing which should debar me from the companionship of honorable, respectable people, I feel nevertheless like a spy, a hypocrite, and a thief. These are the circumstances which have led to my downfall.

I have had with me during the summer a maid who, while supposedly honest when articles she knows to be of value are in question, appropriates without scruple any trifles she may fancy. I confess to a discomfort at losing things in this manner, which is out of all proportion to the magnitude of the loss, so that I am likely to set a much higher value on anything that Ellen has taken than while it remained in my own possession. My downward career began in the effort to recover my lost property. Ellen is always pleasant and courteous, and it would be difficult to allude to articles of mine in her possession without seeming to accuse her of ill breeding. A way presented itself, when, glancing into her room in passing, I saw a handkerchief of mine on her table beside some ribbon I had bought the day before. Seizing them, I fled to my own room and put them away. My actions were those of a thief, and I felt like one.

After that it became a habit with me when passing Ellen’s room in her absence to step in and help myself to any articles of my own which might be scattered about. At first I did this with trepidation, fearing lest I be caught in the act. Gradually I grew bolder and more dextrous, learning to open and shut the door noiselessly and make off with my plunder much after the manner, I fear, of a professional thief. Each time that I thus surreptitiously possessed myself of my own effects, I had a sense of guilt much greater no doubt than that experienced by Ellen in taking them. In the course of the summer a number of articles originally mine have changed hands in this manner several times. Ellen, for example, has reserved for herself from the wash each week such of my handkerchiefs as pleased her, and I in turn have purloined them from her. Neither of us has ever shown any consciousness of these private transactions between us. Ellen has been uniformly kind and obliging, and I trust I have equaled her in courtesy.

One day not long since, after carelessly telling Ellen how many handkerchiefs I had put in the wash, so that she could understand how many I expected back, I strolled out to the clothes-yard and counted the handkerchiefs on the line. As I had anticipated, I found several extra ones bearing the mark I had placed on them for identification. If I let them stay until they were dry and taken in, I knew they would disappear. My best chance of recovery was to take them then. So with frequent glances toward the house to see that Ellen was not looking out of the window, and with several false alarms thinking she was coming, I hastily jerked out pins, snatched the wet handkerchiefs, and thrust them into the waist of my gown. Then after picking some mignonette to serve as an excuse for my presence in the back yard, I returned to the house. Passing through the kitchen Ellen stopped me to ask about dinner, and as I talked with her, conscience caused me tremors that were worse than the chill of the cold, wet linen at the pit of my stomach.

My next step in the path of evil was to open Ellen’s drawers and look into her trunk. Reason has not as yet decided whether she approves the act, but thinks it probably justifiable. Conscience sternly refuses to consider any extenuating circumstances, and holds me guilty of having secretly entered another woman’s room and examined the contents of her private drawers and boxes.

The culminating point in my course has been reached, I think, within the last ten days, during which time I have become brazen and reckless. Ellen is to leave in a few days. Having the evidence of my own eyes that in the depths of her trunk were safely stowed away a box of candles of a peculiar size which I could not easily replace, and a cookbook containing my favorite recipes, I began a bold attack. I might have stolen them back when I found them, but all criminals have their limitations in evil, and that was mine. I could not secretly take things from Ellen’s trunk. Instead I went straight to the kitchen, and bracing myself firmly against the table, with, I am sure, an expression of hardened defiance, said, “Ellen, I can’t spare all those candles. I will give you two or three, but I want the rest, and you must bring back my cookbook.”

Ellen looked at me in surprise. Our relations have been characterized by perfect courtesy toward each other, and here I was suddenly guilty of the ill breeding of insinuating that she was dishonest and unblushingly showing a knowledge of the contents of her trunk. She felt her superiority, and I was conscious of acting a very unworthy part; but having begun it was impossible to retreat.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said in a tone which intimated that she should be very sorry to have me injure myself in her estimation.

“I mean, Ellen, that I want you to find those things for me before you go,” I said, and made my escape for the time being.

Some girls would have sulked after this, but Ellen was too well bred. She treated me just as well as ever. The next day I returned to the attack.

“Have you brought down my cookbook and the candles, Ellen ?” I asked.

“Why, I don’t know where they are,” she answered.

“Well, be sure to find them,” I replied.

She looked at me with a pitying air, and said: “ Why, it seems as if you think I ’ve got them. No one ever said such a thing to me before. I have always had such a pleasant time with the people I have worked for, and I should be very sorry to have anything disagreeable happen here,”

Her conscience evidently did not give her a single qualm. Instead she had a virtuous air of self-approval. She felt that she was being a lady and that I was not.

“I should be sorry, too, Ellen, to have anything disagreeable happen,” I persisted, “but I must have those things.” With that I retired.

Evidently, Ellen is vulnerable. My insistence disturbed her; she did not know to what lengths I might go. So to-day the box of candles was in its usual place, and the cookbook on the table, when I entered the kitchen. Ellen and I had a pleasant little chat, but I was less at ease than she. My conscience was troublesome, while hers was not. Mine makes me feel as if I had been engaged for two months in a genuine criminal career. What is conscience good for when it shows so little discrimination ?