Just For Honor

Wednesday 23/07/14 10:45 AM - Lm. Jack McArdle ss cc

A lot of our sins have to do, not with what we do wrong, but in the good things we don't do. In Albert Camus' novel. The Fall, there's a devastating line that expresses the truth of how narrow our lives can become. There is a scene where a respectable lawyer, walking in the streets of Amsterdam, hears a cry in the night. He realises that a woman has fallen or has been pushed into the canal and is crying out for help. Then the thoughts come rushing through his mind. Of course he must help, but ... a respected lawyer getting involved in this way, what would the implications be, what about the natural danger ... after all, who knows what has been going on? By the time he has thought it through, it is too late. He moves on, making all kinds of excuses to justify his failure to act. Camus writes, 'He did not anser the cry for help because that was the kind of man he was.'

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