But he did most of his ravings in Greek or German. The man's mind
was a perfect rag-bag of useless things. Once, when he was beginning to get
sober, he told me that I was the only rational being in the Inferno into which
he had descended--a Virgil in the Shades, he said--and that, in return for my
tobacco, he would, before he died, give me the materials of a new Inferno that
should make me greater than Dante. Then he fell asleep on a horse-blanket and
woke up quite calm.
"Man," said he, "when you have reached the uttermost depths of degradation,
little incidents which would vex a higher life, are to you of no consequence.
Last night, my soul was among the gods; but I make no doubt that my bestial
body was writhing down here in the garbage."
"You were abominably drunk if that's what you mean," I said.
"I WAS drunk--filthy drunk. I who am the son of a man with whom you have no
concern--I who was once Fellow of a College whose buttery- hatch you have not
seen. I was loathsomely drunk. But consider how lightly I am touched. It is
nothing to me. Less than nothing; for I do not even feel the headache which
should be my portion. Now, in a higher life, how ghastly would have been my
punishment, how bitter my repentance! Believe me, my friend with the neglected
education, the highest is as the lowest--always supposing each degree extreme.
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