No More Learning

There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by
certain ignoramuses--that I have never written a moral tale, or, in more
precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined
to bring me out, and develop my morals:--that is the secret. By and by
the "North American Quarterly Humdrum" will make them ashamed of their
stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution--by way
of mitigating the accusations against me--I offer the sad history
appended,--a history about whose obvious moral there can be no question
whatever, since he who runs may read it in the large capitals which form
the title of the tale. I should have credit for this arrangement--a
far wiser one than that of La Fontaine and others, who reserve the
impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus sneak it in at
the fag end of their fables.

Defuncti injuria ne afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables, and De
mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction--even if the dead in
question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore,
to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad dog, it is
true, and a dog's death it was that he died; but he himself was not to
blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in his mother.
She did her best in the way of flogging him while an infant--for duties
to her well--regulated mind were always pleasures, and babies, like
tough steaks, or the modern Greek olive trees, are invariably the better
for beating--but, poor woman! she had the misfortune to be left-handed,
and a child flogged left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The
world revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from
left to right. If each blow in the proper direction drives an evil
propensity out, it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks
its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at Toby's chastisements,
and, even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was
getting worse and worse every day.
At last I saw, through the tears in
my eyes, that there was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when
he had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one might
have mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been produced
beyond that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand
it no longer, but went down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my
voice, made prophecy of his ruin.

The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age
he used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At
six months, I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven months he
was in the constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies.
At eight months he peremptorily refused to put his signature to the
Temperance pledge. Thus he went on increasing in iniquity, month after
month, until, at the close of the first year, he not only insisted upon
wearing moustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and
swearing, and for backing his assertions by bets.

Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I had
predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had "grown
with his growth and strengthened with his strength," so that, when
he came to be a man, he could scarcely utter a sentence without
interlarding it with a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually laid
wagers--no. I will do my friend the justice to say that he would as soon
have laid eggs. With him the thing was a mere formula--nothing more. His
expressions on this head had no meaning attached to them whatever. They
were simple if not altogether innocent expletives--imaginative phrases
wherewith to round off a sentence. When he said "I'll bet you so and
so," nobody ever thought of taking him up; but still I could not help
thinking it my duty to put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and
so I told him.