So I
entered my room, and rang for my maid. As I did so I looked around
me, and a most unaccountable repugnance to my temporary abode came
over me, in spite of my efforts. It was no more to be shaken off
than a chill is to be shaken off when we enter some damp cave.
And, rely upon it, the feeling of dislike and apprehension with
which we regard, at first sight, certain places and people, was not
implanted in us without some wholesome purpose. I grant it is
irrational--mere animal instinct--but is not instinct God's gift,
and is it for us to despise it? It is by instinct that children
know their friends from their enemies--that they distinguish with
such unerring accuracy between those who like them and those who
only flatter and hate them. Dogs do the same; they will fawn on
one person, they slink snarling from another. Show me a man whom
children and dogs shrink from, and I will show you a false, bad
man--lies on his lips, and murder at his heart. No; let none
despise the heaven-sent gift of innate antipathy, which makes the
horse quail when the lion crouches in the thicket--which makes the
cattle scent the shambles from afar, and low in terror and disgust
as their nostrils snuff the blood-polluted air.
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