To my dear friends who are having difficulty during this Lent
regarding temptation...
'There cannot be any harm,' he
said to himself, 'in my only just LOOKING at it!'
The car stood in the middle of the yard, quite unattended, the
stable-helps and other hangers-on being all at their dinner. Toad walked
slowly round it, inspecting, criticising, musing deeply.
'I wonder,' he said to himself presently, 'I wonder if this sort of car
STARTS easily?'
Next moment, hardly knowing how it came about, he found he had hold of
the handle and was turning it. As the familiar sound broke forth, the
old passion seized on Toad and completely mastered him, body and soul.
As if in a dream he found himself, somehow, seated in the driver's seat;
as if in a dream, he pulled the lever and swung the car round the yard
and out through the archway; and, as if in a dream, all sense of
right and wrong, all fear of obvious consequences, seemed temporarily
suspended. He increased his pace, and as the car devoured the street
and leapt forth on the high road through the open country, he was only
conscious that he was Toad once more, Toad at his best and highest, Toad
the terror, the traffic-queller, the Lord of the lone trail, before whom
all must give way or be smitten into nothingness and everlasting night.
He chanted as he flew, and the car responded with sonorous drone; the
miles were eaten up under him as he sped he knew not whither, fulfilling
his instincts, living his hour, reckless of what might come to him.
* * * * * *
'To my mind,' observed the Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates
cheerfully, 'the ONLY difficulty that presents itself in this otherwise
very clear case is, how we can possibly make it sufficiently hot for the
incorrigible rogue and hardened ruffian whom we see cowering in the
dock before us. Let me see: he has been found guilty, on the clearest
evidence, first, of stealing a valuable motor-car; secondly, of driving
to the public danger; and, thirdly, of gross impertinence to the rural
police. Mr. Clerk, will you tell us, please, what is the very stiffest
penalty we can impose for each of these offences? Without, of course,
giving the prisoner the benefit of any doubt, because there isn't any.'
--The Wind in the Willows, 1908, Kenneth Grahame
