According, then, to your knowledge of that beast will be your
knowledge of the man you have to do with. Only there is one
beautiful and awful thing about it, that if any one gifted with
this perception once uses it for his own ends, it is taken from
him, and then, not knowing that it is gone, he is in a far worse
condition than before, for he trusts to what he has not got.'
'How dreadful!' Said Curdie. 'I must mind what I am about.'
'Yes, indeed, Curdie.'
'But may not one sometimes make a mistake without being able to
help it?'
'Yes. But so long as he is not after his own ends, he will never
make a serious mistake.'
'I suppose you want me, ma'am, to warn every one whose hand tells
me that he is growing a beast - because, as you say, he does not
know it himself.'
The princess smiled.
'Much good that would do, Curdie! I don't say there are no cases
in which it would be of use, but they are very rare and peculiar
cases, and if such come you will know them. To such a person there
is in general no insult like the truth. He cannot endure it, not
because he is growing a beast, but because he is ceasing to be a
man. It is the dying man in him that it makes uncomfortable, and
he trots, or creeps, or swims, or flutters out of its way - calls
it a foolish feeling, a whim, an old wives' fable, a bit of
priests' humbug, an effete superstition, and so on.
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