the art of philosophy .. cleanliness is next to godliness ... they say

"Murder is to me no special category," replied the other. "All sins are murder, even as all life is war. I behold your race, like starving mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and feeding on each other's lives. I follow sins beyond the moment of their acting; I find in all that the last consequence is death; and to my eyes, the pretty maid who thwarts her mother with such taking graces on a question of a ball, drips no less visibly with human gore than such a murderer as yourself. Do I say that I follow sins? I follow virtues also; they differ not by the thickness of a nail, they are both scythes for the reaping angel of Death. Evil, for which I live, consists not in action but in character. The bad man is dear to me; not the bad act, whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough down the hurtling cataract of the ages, might yet be found more blessed than those of the rarest virtues. And it is not because you have killed a dealer, but because you are Markheim, that I offer to forward your escape." ...

Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor. "If I be condemned to evil acts," he said, "there is still one door of freedom open - I can cease from action. If my life be an ill thing, I can lay it down. Though I be, as you say truly, at the beck of every small temptation, I can yet, by one decisive gesture, place myself beyond the reach of all. My love of good is damned to barrenness; it may, and let it be! But I have still my hatred of evil; and from that, to your galling disappointment, you shall see that I can draw both energy and courage."

-Markheim by R.L. Stevenson



There is only to convince the one that plagues you that by virtue he can thwart you. And that by his own self sacrifice he can achieve that which he has always failed to grasp .. sanctification. The blessed gift of forgiveness for one small phrase offered on a cross during a final hour.

I do not know if these acts will gain them the white coat they so desire after years of dragging their own through the mud and offal. I do not know if their presumed instantaneous righteousness can wash their hands of the innocent blood that has coagulated there in layers. I do not know if their believed martyrdom in the end does indeed thwart me from my final destination. All I know is that here and now they are no longer a pebble in my shoe .. a thorn in my side .. or a very small loose thread that needs tying off. Their end is self induced and peaceful enough for they believe that this act must secure the stone around my neck ... surely they can hear the bubbles as the fathoms increase over my head. Let them believe such. Tomorrow I will be here and they .. shall not.