Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories
Mr. William Hyde was discharged from Deer Lodge Penitentiary a changed man. That was quite in line with the accepted theory of criminal jurisprudence, the warden's discipline, and the chaplain's prayers. Yes, Mr. Hyde was changed, and the change had bitten deep; his humorous contempt for the law had turned to abiding hatred; his sunburned cheeks were pallid, his lungs were weak, and he coughed considerably. Balanced against these results, to be sure, were the benefits accruing from three years of corrective discipline at the State's expense; the knack of conversing through stone walls, which Mr. Hyde had mastered, and the plaiting of wonderful horsehair bridles, which he had learned. Otherwise he was the same "Laughing Bill" his friends had known, neither more nor less regenerate. Since the name of Montana promised to associate itself with unpleasant memories, Mr. Hyde determined at once to bury his past and begin life anew in a climate more suited to weak lungs. To that end he stuck up a peaceful citizen of Butte who was hurrying homeward with an armful of bundles, and in the warm dusk of a pleasant evening relieved him of eighty-three dollars, a Swiss watch with an elk's-tooth fob, a pearl-handled penknife, a key-ring, and a bottle of digestive tablets.
resemblance, of anything in their Tragedies, to the excellent Scenes of
Passion in SHAKESPEARE or in FLETCHER.
"For Love Scenes, you will find but few among them. Their Tragic poets
dealt not with that soft passion; but with Lust, Cruelty, Revenge,
Ambition, and those bloody actions they produced, which were more capable
of raising horror than compassion in an audience: leaving Love untouched,
whose gentleness would have tempered them; which is the most frequent of
all the passions, and which (being the private concernment of every
person) is soothed by viewing its own Image [p. 549] in a public
entertainment.
"Among their Comedies, we find a Scene or two of tenderness: and that,
where you would least expect it, in PLAUTUS. But to speak generally,
their lovers say little, when they see each others but anima mea! vita
mea! [Greek: zoae kai psuchae!] as the women, in JUVENAL's time, used to
cry out, in the fury of their kindness.
"Then indeed, to speak sense were an offence. Any sudden gust of passion,
as an ecstasy of love in an unexpected meeting, cannot better be expressed
than in a word and a sigh, breaking one another. Nature is dumb on such
occasions; and to make her speak, would be to represent her unlike
herself. But there are a thousand other concernments of lovers as
jealousies, complaints, contrivances, and the like; where, not to open
their minds at large to each other, were to be wanting to their own love,
and to the expectation of the audience: who watch the Movements of their
Mr. William Hyde was discharged from Deer Lodge Penitentiary a changed man. That was quite in line with the accepted theory of criminal jurisprudence, the warden's discipline, and the chaplain's prayers. Yes, Mr. Hyde was changed, and the change had bitten deep; his humorous contempt for the law had turned to abiding hatred; his sunburned cheeks were pallid, his lungs were weak, and he coughed considerably. Balanced against these results, to be sure, were the benefits accruing from three years of corrective discipline at the State's expense; the knack of conversing through stone walls, which Mr. Hyde had mastered, and the plaiting of wonderful horsehair bridles, which he had learned. Otherwise he was the same "Laughing Bill" his friends had known, neither more nor less regenerate. Since the name of Montana promised to associate itself with unpleasant memories, Mr. Hyde determined at once to bury his past and begin life anew in a climate more suited to weak lungs. To that end he stuck up a peaceful citizen of Butte who was hurrying homeward with an armful of bundles, and in the warm dusk of a pleasant evening relieved him of eighty-three dollars, a Swiss watch with an elk's-tooth fob, a pearl-handled penknife, a key-ring, and a bottle of digestive tablets.