Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might, by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress.
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Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."Why, then,” said the lawyer, good-naturedly, "the best thing we can do is to stay down here and speak with you from where we are.”"That is just what I was about to venture to propose,” returned the doctor with a smile. But the words were hardly uttered, before the smile was struck out of his face and succeeded by an expression of such abject terror and despair, as froze the very blood of the two gentlemen below. They saw it but for a glimpse for the window was instantly thrust down; but that glimpse had been sufficient, and they turned and left the court without a word.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."My dear Utterson,—When this shall fall into your hands, I shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances of my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be early. Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he was to place in your hands; and if you care to hear more, turn to the confession of "Your unworthy and unhappy friend, "HENRY JEKYLL."
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.I want you to postpone all other engagements for to-night—ay, even if you were summoned to the bedside of an emperor; to take a cab, unless your carriage should be actually at the door; and with this letter in your hand for consultation, to drive straight to my house. Poole, my butler, has his orders; you will find him waiting your arrival with a locksmith. The door of my cabinet is then to be forced: and you are to go in alone; to open the glazed press (letter E) on the left hand, breaking the lock if it be shut; and to draw out, with all its contents as they stand, the fourth drawer from the top or (which is the same thing) the third from the bottom.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.The butler was awaiting my arrival; he had received by the same post as mine a registered letter of instruction, and had sent at once for a locksmith and a carpenter. The tradesmen came while we were yet speaking; and we moved in a body to old Dr. Denman’s surgical theatre, from which (as you are doubtless aware) Jekyll’s private cabinet is most conveniently entered. The door was very strong, the lock excellent; the carpenter avowed he would have great trouble and have to do much damage, if force were to be used; and the locksmith was near despair. But this last was a handy fellow, and after two hour’s work, the door stood open.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my mind to set on paper. I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul sickened at it; and yet now when that sight has faded from my eyes, I ask myself if I believe it, and I cannot answer. My life is shaken to its roots; sleep has left me; the deadliest terror sits by me at all hours of the day and night; and I feel that my days are numbered, and that I must die; and yet I shall die incredulous. As for the moral turpitude that man unveiled to me, even with tears of penitence, I can not, even in memory, dwell on it without a start of horror.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure my colleague was insane; but till that was proved beyond the possibility of doubt, I felt bound to do as he requested.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.Mr. Utterson had already quailed at the name of Hyde; but when the stick was laid before him, he could doubt no longer; broken and battered as it was, he recognized it for one that he had himself presented many years before to Henry Jekyll.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."You know I never approved of it," pursued Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic."My will? Yes, certainly, I know that," said the doctor, a trifle sharply. "You have told me so.""Well, I tell you so again," continued the lawyer. "I have been learning something of young Hyde.”The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes. "I do not care to hear more," said he. "This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop.”"What I heard was abominable," said Utterson."It can make no change. You do not understand my position," returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency of manner.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes. "I do not care to hear more,” said he. "This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop.”"What I heard was abominable,” said Utterson."It can make no change. You do not understand my position,” returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency of manner. "I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange—a very strange one. It is one of those affairs that cannot be mended by talking.”
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.But time began at last to obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.Between these two, I now felt I had to choose.Now read the excerpt from Darcy’s essay on Dr. Jekyll.In the story, Dr. Jekyll repeatedly talks about having only two choices. Yet I know from my own experience that there are usually many options to choose from when dealing with human behavior—not just good or evil. This leads me to conclude that Dr. Jekyll had a strict, uncompromising, black-and-white view of the world that didn’t leave room for half measures and shades of gray.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable.
Read the three excerpts from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.For all that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions, counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business, that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.***Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and obviously under a weight of consideration. "You are sure he used a key?” he inquired at last.***That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in sombre spirits and sat down to dinner without relish.
Read the excerpt from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden and the family have to change their name. No sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.”
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