What was the matter with the Master-at-arms? And, be the matter what it
might, how could it have direct relation to Billy Budd with whom, prior to the
affair of the spilled soup, he had never come into any special contact, official
or otherwise? What indeed could the trouble have to do with one so little
inclined to give offence as the merchant-ship's peacemaker, even him who in
Claggart's own phrase was "the sweet and pleasant young fellow"? Yes, why should
Jimmy Legs, to borrow the Dansker's expression, be down on the Handsome Sailor?
But, at heart and not for nothing, as the late chance encounter may indicate to
the discerning, down on him, secretly down on him, he assuredly was.
Now to invent something touching the more private career of Claggart,
something involving Billy Budd, of which something the latter should be wholly
ignorant, some romantic incident implying that Claggart's knowledge of the young
blue-jacket began at some period anterior to catching sight of him on board the
seventy-four-all this, not so difficult to do, might avail in a way more or less
interesting to account for whatever of enigma may appear to lurk in the case.
But in fact there was nothing of the sort. And yet the cause, necessarily to be
assumed as the sole one assignable, is in its very realism as much charged with
that prime element of Radcliffian romance, the mysterious, as any that the
ingenuity of the author of the Mysteries of Udolpho could devise. For what can
more partake of the mysterious than an antipathy spontaneous and profound, such
as is evoked in certain exceptional mortals by the mere aspect of some other
mortal, however harmless he may be, if not called forth by this very
harmlessness itself?
Now there can exist no irritating juxtaposition of dissimilar personalities
comparable to that which is possible aboard a great war-ship fully manned and at
sea. There, every day among all ranks almost every man comes into more or less
of contact with almost every other man. Wholly there to avoid even the sight of
an aggravating object one must needs give it Jonah's toss or jump overboard
himself. Imagine how all this might eventually operate on some peculiar human
creature the direct reverse of a saint?
But for the adequate comprehending of Claggart by a normal nature, these
hints are insufficient. To pass from a normal nature to him one must cross "the
deadly space between." And this is best done by indirection.
Long ago an honest scholar my senior, said to me in reference to one who like
himself is now no more, a man so unimpeachably respectable that against him
nothing was ever openly said tho' among cracked by the tap of a lady's fan. You
are aware that I am the adherent of no organized religion much less of any
philosophy built into a system. Well, for all that, I think that to try and get
into from some source other than what is known as knowledge of the world- that
were hardly possible, at least for me." human, and knowledge of the world
assuredly implies the knowledge of human nature, and in most of its varieties."
"Yes, but a superficial knowledge of it, serving ordinary purposes. But for
anything deeper, I am not certain whether to know the world and to know human
nature be not two distinct branches of knowledge, which while they may coexist
in the same heart, yet either may exist with little or nothing of the other.
Nay, in an average man of the world, his constant rubbing with it blunts that
fine spiritual insight indispensable to the understanding of the essential in
certain exceptional characters, whether evil ones or good. In a matter of some
importance I have seen a girl wind an old lawyer about her little finger. Nor
was it the dotage of senile love. Nothing of the sort. But he knew law better
than he knew the girl's heart. Coke and Blackstone hardly shed so much light
into obscure spiritual places as the Hebrew prophets. And who were they? Mostly
recluses."
At the time my inexperience was such that I did not quite see the drift of
all this. It may be that I see it now. And, indeed, if that lexicon which is
based on Holy Writ were any longer popular, one might with less difficulty
define and denominate certain phenomenal men. As it is, one must turn to some
authority not liable to the charge of being tinctured with the Biblical element.
In a list of definitions included in the authentic translation of Plato, a
list attributed to him, occurs this: "Natural Depravity: a depravity according
to nature." A definition which tho' savoring of Calvinism, by no means involves
Calvin's dogmas as to total mankind. Evidently its intent makes it applicable
but to individuals. Not many are the examples of this depravity which the
gallows and jail supply. At any rate for notable instances, since these have no
vulgar alloy of the brute in them, but invariably are dominated by
intellectuality, one must go elsewhere. Civilization, especially if of the
austerer sort, is auspicious to it. It folds itself in the mantle of
respectability. It has its certain negative virtues serving as silent
auxiliaries. It never allows wine to get within its guard. It is not going too
far to say that it is without vices or small sins. There is a phenomenal pride
in it that excludes them from anything mercenary or avaricious. In short the
depravity here meant partakes nothing of the sordid or sensual. It is serious,
but free from acerbity. Though no flatterer of mankind it never speaks ill of
it.
But the thing which in eminent instances signalizes so exceptional a nature
is this: though the man's even temper and discreet bearing would seem to
intimate a mind peculiarly subject to the law of reason, not the less in his
heart he would seem to riot in complete exemption from that law, having
apparently little to do with reason further than to employ it as an ambidexter
implement for effecting the irrational. That is to say: Toward the
accomplishment of an aim which in wantonness of malignity would seem to partake
of the insane, he will direct a cool judgement sagacious and sound.
These men are true madmen, and of the most dangerous sort, for their lunacy
is not continuous but occasional, evoked by some special object; it is probably
secretive, which is as much to say it is self-contained, so that when moreover,
most active, it is to the average mind not distinguishable from sanity, and for
the reason above suggested that whatever its aims may be- and the aim is never
declared- the method and the outward proceeding are always perfectly rational.
Now something such an one was Claggart, in whom was the mania of an evil
nature, not engendered by vicious training or corrupting books or licentious
living, but born with him and innate, in short "a depravity according to
nature."
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