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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: judge of any one? Perhaps the surest indication of evil (I further
reflected) is that it always tries to conceal itself, and the
strongest incitement to good is that evil cannot be concealed. The
crime, or the vice, or even the self-acknowledged weakness, becomes
a part of the individual consciousness; it cannot be forgotten or
outgrown. It follows a life through all experiences and to the
uttermost ends of the earth, pressing towards the light with a
terrible, demoniac power. There are noteless lives, of course--
lives that accept obscurity, mechanically run their narrow round of
circumstance, and are lost; but when a life endeavors to lose
itself,--to hide some conscious guilt or failure,--can it succeed?
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