The
SKELETON IN THE CLOSET
By CLARENCE S. DARROW
With Compliments of
THEODOVTE SCHIOEDE9Z
Cos Cob, Conn.





-azd-. I

7

THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET





THE SKELETON
INTHECLOSET
ByCLARENCES.
DARROW
PRINTED & PUBLISHED BY
FREDERICK C. BURSCH AT
HILLACRE RIVERSIDE CONNECTICUT MCMXIV
NECTICUT MCMXIV



Copyright
189pp9
Clarence S. Darrow



THE SKELETON IN THE
CLOSET
HE closet has
so long been
allotted to the
skeleton that
we have come
to regard this
room as its fit and natural home;
it has been given over to this
guest because it is the darkest,
the closest and least conspicuous
in the house. The door can be
securely fastened and only now
and then can the grating bones
5



be heard by the world outside.
Still, however secluded and unused this guest chamber seems
to be, and however carefully
we bolt the door and darken
every chink and crevice in the
walls, we are ever conscious
that the occupant is there,
and will remain until the house
is closed, and the last tenant
has departed, never to return.
The very fact that we try so
hard to keep the skeleton in its
proper room, makes it the more
impossible to forget that it is
there. Now    and  then  we
awake with a start at the
thought of what might happen
should it break the door and



wander through    the house,
and then stray out into the
wide world, and tell all the
peaceful, trusting  neighbors
from what house it stole away;
and yet we are somehow conscious that the rumor of its
dread  presence  has  already
traveled as far as we are known.
Man is a wonderfully adaptable
animal; he fits himself easily
into the environment where he
is placed. He passes from infancy
to childhood and from childhood to boyhood as smoothly as the placid river flows to
the waiting sea. Every circumstance and surrounding of
his life seems to have been
7



made for him. Suddenly a
new desire takes possession of
his soul; he turns his back on
the home of his childhood
days and goes out alone. In a
little time a new family is
reared about him, and he forgets the group that clustered
round his father's hearth. He
may lose a leg or a fortune,
and he soon conforms to his
changed   condition  and  life
goes on as naturally  and as
easily as before. A child is
born beneath his roof; it takes
a place within his heart and
home, and in a little while he
can scarcely think of the day
it was not there. Death comes,
8



and a member of his little
band is carried out, but time
drops its healing balm upon
the wounds and life goes on
almost unconscious that the
dead  has   ever  lived.  But
while we adjust ourselves naturally to all things living and
to ever varying scenes, the
skeleton in the closet is always
an intruder, no matter how
long it may have dwelt beneath the roof. Even though
we may forget its actual presence for a little time, still no
scene is so perfect and no enjoyment so great but we feel
a cloud casting its shadow
across our happiness or the



weight of some burden on our
soul; and when we stop to ask
the cause, the grinning skelton
reminds us that it is with us
even here.
This spectre stands quite
apart from the other sorrows
of our life; age seems powerless to forget, and time will
not bring its ever-fresh, recurring scenes to erase the memory of the past. This is not
because the skeleton is really
such a dreadful guest. The
kind and loving ivy creeps tenderly around   each  yawning
scar and crumbling stone, until the whole ruin is covered
with a lovely green. The de10



caying pile stands free and
open to the sun and rain and
air. It does not hide its head
or apologize for the blemishes
and seams that mark its face,
and a kind, forgiving nature
takes the ruin, scars and all,
and  blends these with    her
softening years and lovely face
into a  beautiful harmonious
whole; but unlike the ruin,
the skeleton in the closet is a
neglected, outcast child. With
every breath   we  insist that
there is nothing in the room.
We refuse to take it to our
hearts and homes and acknowledge it as our own. We seek
to strangle it to death, and
II



each fresh attempt not only
shows our murderous design,
but proves that the skeleton is
not a pulseless thing but is endowed with    immortal life.
The brighter the    fire-light
that glows around our hearth,
the more desolate and drear
sounds the wail of the wind
outside, for through its cold
blasts wanders  the  outcast,
whose rightful place is in the
brightest corner of the room.
Our constant annoyance and
sorrow at this dread presence
is not caused by the way the
skeleton  behaves to us, but
from the way we treat our
guest. If we looked it squarely
12



in its grinning skull, it might
not seem so very loathsome to
the sight. It has the right to
grin. It may be but a grim
smile over the consciousness
that it has sounded the last sorrow and that henceforth no
greater evils are in store; it
may be a mocking, sardonic
grin at the thought of our discomfiture over its unwelcome
presence and the knowledge
that we cannot drive it out.
There is no truer index to
real character than the way
we treat the skeletons with
which we live. Some run to
the closet door, and try to lock
it fast when a neighbor comes
Q3



their way. If perchance any
fear of discovery is felt, they
stand guard outside and solemnly protest that there is nothing
in the room. Their anxiety
and haste plainly show fear
lest their hated guest shall reveal its face; and of course
there rises in the neighbor's
mind a vision of a skeleton
more horrible by far than the
one inside the door or than
anyone can be. If the luckless
jailer really fears that the rattle
of the   prisoner's bones has
been heard outside, he feels it
his duty to carefully explain or
tediously cover up every detail
and circumstance that caused
14



the presence of the spectre in
the house. All this can only
show that the guest is terrible
to behold or that the jailer is
so poor and weak that he himself is a helpless prisoner to his
foolish pride and unmanly fear.
It can only serve to emphasize
the presence he tries so vainly
to deny. There are also those
who know that their skeleton
has been seen, or who having
lost all else but this persistent,
grinning guest, drag it out and
parade it in the world to gain
the sympathy or the money of
their  neighbors   and   their
friends, like the crippled beggar standing on   the  corner
I5



holding out his hat to every
passer-by. The true man neither guiltily conceals nor anxiously explains nor vulgarly parades.
He lives his life the best he
can, and lets it stand for what
it is. A thousand idle tales
may be true or false. One may
have seen but certain things,
and placed him with the saints.
Another little soul, who never
felt the breadth and depth of
human life, may have seen his
scars alone, and cast him out.
But standing by his side, or
clasping his strong, sympathetic
hand, no one thinks of halos
or scars or asks an explanation
of this or that, for in his whole
I6



being is felt the divine presence
of a great soul, who has lived
and loved, sinned and suffered,
and been strengthened and purified by all.
The skeleton is really kind
that it only grins as we look it
in the face. Of all our household it has received the hardest
treatment at our hands. It has
helped us more than any of the
rest, and been locked in the
closet for its pains. It may
perchance have come at our
own invitation, bringing us the
keenest, wildest joy our life
had ever known. We gladly
drained the pleasure to the
dregs, and then coolly locked
17



the memory close in the darkest hole that we could find
The day it came, has well
nigh faded from our minds,
and the mad, wild joy we
knew   can  never  more be
wakened from the burned-out
passions of the past, but the
skeleton, which rose up grim
and ghastly from the dying
flame, remains to mock and
jeer and make us sad. And now
when the day is spent and the
cup is drained, we charge the
poor spectre with our lasting
pain, and forget the joy it
brought. We look with dread
at these mocking, grinning
bones, which we cannot drive
18



away, and we forget the time,
long, long ago, when those
dry sticks were covered up
with beautiful and tempting
flesh.
It may be that we shall
always shudder as we hear the
rattle of the bones when we
pass the closet door, but in
justice to the inmate, we should
give him credit for the joys of
long ago. And this brings us
back to the old question of the
balancing of pain and pleasure,
good and evil, right and wrong.
It may be that in the mysterious adjustment of nature's balances, a moment of supreme
bliss will outweigh an eternity
19



of pain. In the infinite economy, which life counted for
the more, -that of Napoleon,
or the poor French peasant
that passed through an obscure
existence to an unknown grave?
The brief glory of Austerlitz
was followed by the bitterness
of Waterloo, and the long silence of an exile's life, while the
peasant trod his short path without ambition, and filled a nameless  grave  without regret.
Which is the greater and finer,
the blameless life of the patient
brute, or the winding, devious
path of a human soul? It is
only the dull level that brings
no sorrow or regret. It is a
20



sterile soil where no weeds will
grow, and a bare closet where
no skeleton will dwell.
Neither should we remember the skeleton only for the
joy it brought; from the day
it came, it has been the greatest benefactor that our life has
known. When the mad delirium had passed away, and the
last lingering fragrance was
almost spent, this despised skeleton remained as the sole companion, whose presence should
forever bind us back to those
feelings that were fresh and
true and straight from nature's
heart, and that world which
once was green and young and
21



filled with pulsing life. As the
shadows   gather  round   our
head, and   our once-straying
feet fall mechanically into the
narrow path so straight and
even at the further end, we
may shudder now and then at
the thought of the grim skeleton whose life is so far removed from our sober later
selves; but with the shudder
comes a spark, a flash of that
great, natural light and heat
that once possessed this tottering frame, and gave a glow of
feeling and a strength of purpose so deep and all-controlling
that the artificial world seems
no more than a dim candle
22



shining by the glorious sun.
It is the exhausted emotions
of age, which men call prudence, that are ever warning
youth of the follies of its sins.
It is the grinning skeleton,
speaking truly from the memory of other days, that insists
that life's morning held the
halcyon hours. Does old age
out live the follies of childhood
or does the man outgrow the
wisdom of youth? The most
vociferous preachers are often
those whose natural spirits have
led them to drink the deepest
of life. They are so foolish as
to think that others can be
taught by their experiences,
23



and mumbling grey-beards endorse the excellence and wisdom of the sermons that they
preach. They are not wise
enough to know    that their
prattle is more vain and foolish
than the babblings of their
childhood days. It was the
growing, vital sap of life that
made them children years ago;
it is the icy, palsying touch of
age that makes them babbling,
preaching children once again.
As well might the calm and
placid lake teach the beauty of
repose to the boiling, seething
cataract, that thunders down
Niagara's gulf.  When    the
troubled waters shall have reach24



ed the lake they shall be placid
too. Nature is wiser far than
man.   She makes the first
childhood precede the second.
If the age of prudence came
with youth, it would be a dull
and prosy world for a little
time; then life would be extinct
upon  the earth   and  death
triumphant over all.
But these are the smallest
reasons why we should venerate
the neglected skeleton, which
we have ruthlessly cast into
the closet as if it were a hideous thing. This uncanny skeleton, ever thrusting its unwelcome bones into our presence
and our lives, has been the most
25



patient,  persistent,  constant
teacher that all our years have
known. We look backward
through the long dim vista of
the past, back to the little
trusting child that once nestled
on its mother's breast and from
whose loving lips and gentle
soul it first was told of life, its
temptations and its sins; backward   to  her, whose whole
thought was a benediction to
the life that was once a portion of
herself. We remember still
this mother's words teaching
us the way to live and telling
us the way to die. We always
knew that no selfish thought
inspired a single word she said
26



and yet time and time again
we strayed and wandered from
the path she pointed out. We
could not keep the road and
after a while we did not try.
Again our teacher told us of
the path. He, too, was good
and kind and knew the way
we ought to go, and showed
us all the bad results of sin,
and still we stumbled on. The
preacher came and told us of
the beauteous heaven, straight
at the other end of the narrow
path, and the yawning gulf of
hell to which our shifting footsteps led; but we heeded not
his solemn tones, though they
seemed to come with the au27



thority of God himself. As the
years went on, our mother's
voice was stilled, the teacher's
words were hushed, the preacher's threats became an empty,
hollow sound; and in their
place came the grinning skeleton, born of our own desires and
deeds; less loving  than  the
gentle mother, more real and
life-like than the teacher, saner
and truer than the preacher's
idle words. It was ever present and persistent; it was a
portion of our very selves.
We detested and feared the
hated thing; we locked it in
the closet, and denied that it was
there; but through the bright28



ness of the day and the long
and silent watches of the night,
we heard its rattling bones, and
felt its presence at our side.
No teacher of our youth was
like that grim   and  ghastly
skeleton, which we tried to hide
away. The schoolmaster of
our early life took our fresh,
young, plastic minds and sought
to crowd them full of useless,
unrelated facts that served no
purpose through the years that
-were to come. These lessons
that our teacher made us learn
by rote filled so small a portion
of our daily lives that most of
them were forgotten when the
school-house door was closed.
29



When now and then we found
some use for a trifling thing
that we had learned through
years at school, we were surprised to know that the pedagogue had taught us even this.
In those early days it seemed
to us that life would consist of
one long examination in which
we should be asked the names
of states, the rule of three, and
the words the Romans used for
this and that. All that we
were taught of the great world
outside and the problem that
would one day try our souls,
was learned from the copy
books where we wrote the
same old maxim until all the
30



paper was used up. In after
years, we learned that, while
the copy books might have
taught us how to write in a
stilted, unused hand, still all its
maxims were untrue.
We left the school as ignorant of life as we commenced,
nay, we might more easily
have learned its lesson without
the false, misleading theories
we were taught were true.
When the doors were opened
and the wide world met us
face to face, we tested what
we learned, and found it false,
and then we blundered on
alone. We were taught by
life that the fire and vigor of
31



our younger years could not
be governed by the platitudes
of age. Nature was ever present with her strong and earthly
grasp, her keen desires, her
white hot flame. We learned
the precepts of the books, but
we lived the life that nature
taught.
Our pathetic blunders and
mistakes, and the skeleton that
followed in their wake, remained to teach us what was
false and point to what was
true. This grim, persistent
teacher made but little of the
unimportant facts that   the
schoolmaster sought to make
us learn, and it laughed to
32



scorn the preacher's doctrine,
that in some way we could
avoid the results of our mistakes and  sins. It did not
preach, it took its place beside us as another self and by
its presence sought to make us
know that we could not be at
peace until we clasped it to
our breast and freely accepted
the unwelcome thing as a
portion of our lives.
Only the smallest fraction
that we learned in youth was
assimilated and made a portion
of ourselves; the rest faded so
completely  that it seemed
never to   have  been.  The
teacher soon became a dim,
33



uncertain memory of the past,
whose voice had long since
died away; but the skeleton in
the closet never wearied nor
grew old. It ever made us
learn again the lesson we would
fain forget; opened at each
succeeding period of our lives
the pages we would gladly put
away, until, at last, the ripening touch of time and the
spectre's constant presence made
us know. From the day it
came beneath our roof, it remained the liveliest, wisest,
most persistent member of the
family  group, the   tireless,
watchful teacher, who would
neither sleep  nor allow  its
34



pupil to forget.
It may be that there are
lives so barren and uneventful
that this guest passes ever by
their door, but unfortunate indeed is that abode where it
will not dwell. The wide
vistas can be seen only from
the mountain top, and the infinite depths of life can be
sounded only by the soul that
has been softened and hallowed
by the sanctifying touch of
misery and sin.
Life is a never-ending school,
and the really important lessons all tend to teach man his
proper relation to the environment where he must live.
35



With wild ambitions and desires untamed, we are spawned
out into a shoreless sea of moving  molecules of life, each
separate atom journeying on an
unknown course, regardless of
the  countless other lives it
meets as it blindly rushes on;
no lights nor headlands stand
to point the proper way the
voyager should take, he is left
to sail an untried bark across
an angry sea. If no disaster
should befall, it does not show
that the traveler is wise or
good, but that his ambitions
and desires are few or he has
kept close inside the harbor
line. At first we seek to swim
36



the flood, to scale the rocky
heights, to clutch the twinkling stars. Of course we fail
and fall, and the scars our passions and ambitions leave, remain, though all our particles
are made anew year after year.
We learn at last to leave the
stars to shine where they belong,
to take all things as they are
and adjust our lives to what
must be.
The philosophy of life can
come only from those experiences that leave lasting scars
and results that will not die.
Rather than seek to cover up
these gaping wounds, we should
accept with grace the tales,
37



they tell, and show them as
trophies of the strife we have
passed through. Those scars
are honorable that have brought
our lives into greater harmony
with the universal power. For
resist it as we will, this infinite,
loving presence will ever claim
us as a portion of its self until
our smallest fragments return
once more to earth, and are
united with the elements from
which we came.
No life can be rounded and
complete without the education
that the skeleton alone can
give. Until it came we never
knew   the capacities of the
human soul. We had learned
38



by rote to be forgiving, kind
and true. But the anguish of
the human soul cannot be told
-it must be feltor never known.
That charity born of true comradeship, which is the highest
and holiest sentiment of life,
can be taught by the skeleton
alone. The self-righteous, who
prate of forgiveness to their
fellow  men and who     look
down upon their sinning brothers from above, are hypocrites
or fools. They either have not
lived or else desire to pass for
something they are not. No
one can understand the devious,
miry paths trodden by another
soul unless he himself has
39



wandered through the night.
Those placid, human lives
that have moved along a narrow, even path; that learned
by rote the lessons that the
churches and the schools have
ever taught; whose perfection
consists in refraining from doing certain things in certain
ways; who never had a noble
thought or felt a great desire
to help their fellow menthose blameless, aimless, worthless souls, are neither good nor
bad. They neither feel nor
think; no skeleton would deem
it worth its while to come inside their door.
The world judges the con40



duct of youth by the standards
of age. Even when due allowance is made for the inexperience and haste of the young,
it is assumed that youth and
age are measured by the calendar alone. Few have ever
been wise enough to know that
every passion and circumstance
must be fully weighed, before
an honest verdict can be' written down; and that therefore
only the infinite can judge a
human soul.
Though accursed, doubted,
and despised, Nature ever persists in her relentless plan.
She would make us learn the
lessons that youth so easily for41



gets. She finds us headstrong,
unreasoning, and  moved   by
the same feelings that sway the
brute. She decrees that every
act, however blind or wilful,
must leave its consequences on
our lives, and these immortal
consequences we treat as skeletons and lock them up. But
these uncanny specters wrap us
closely in their bony arms;
they ever peer with sightless
eyes into our soul; they are
with us if we sleep or wake,
and their persistent presence
will not let us sleep. It is the
hated, imprisoned skeleton that
we vainly sought to hide away,
that takes an untamed, fiery soul
42



within its cruel, loving clasp,
and holds it closely in its unforgiving grasp until the vain
longings and wild desires of
youth are subdued, and cooled,
and the deeper harmonies of
life are learned. It is the hated
skeleton that finds within our
breast a heart of flint and takes
this hard and pulseless thing
and scars and twists and melts
it in a thousand tortuous ways
until the stony mass is purged
and softened and is sensitive to
every touch.
It is this same despised skeleton that finds us vain and
boastful and critical of others'
sins, that watches every word
43



we speak and even each unuttered thought; it is with us
when we tightly draw our
robes and pass our fellow on
the other side; it hears us
when we seek to show how
good we are by boasting of our
neighbor's sins; for every spot
of black or red that we see
upon another's robes, it points
its bony fingers to a scar upon
our heart, to remind us that
we are like the rest; and the
same finger ever points us to
our wounds until we feel and
understand that the clay the
Master used for us was as weak
and poor as that from which
he made the rest.
44



However blind and stubborn
we may be, however long we
deny the lesson that the skeleton would teach, still it will
not let us go until with perfect peace and harmony we
look at all the present and the
past, at all that was, and all
that is, and feel no regrets for
what is gone, and no fears
for what must come. It may
be  that our stubborn, stiffnecked soul will still persist
until the hair is white and the
heavy shadows hang about our
heads, but the skeleton with
his soothing, softening ally,
time, sits with the last watchers at our suffering bed, and
45



goes if need be, to the silent
grave, where alike the darkest
crimson spot and the softest,
purest clay are reunited once
again with the loving, universal mother who has forgiven
all and conquered all. It matters not how high we seem to
climb, or what the careless
world may think for good or
ill. It matters not how many
small ambitions we may seem
to have achieved. Even the
unworthy cannot be forever
soothed by the hollow voice
of fame.   All triumphs are
futile without the victory over
self; and when the triumph
over self is won, there are no
46



more battles to be fought, for
all the world is then at peace.
It is the skeleton in the closet
pointing ever to the mistakes
and   maladjustments of   our
past, the skeleton standing there
before our gaze that makes us
still remember where our lives
fell short; that teaches us so
slowly but so surely to turn
from the unworthy victories
and the dire defeats of life to
the mastery of ourselves. It is
the skeleton from whom we
learn that we can live without
the world, but not without
ourselves.
Without the skeleton we
could never feel another's sor47



row, or know another's pain.
Philosophy and theology cannot tell us how another's life
became a hopeless wreck. It
is ourselves alone that reveals
the precipice along which every
footpath leads. It is from life
we learn that it is but an accident when we fall, and equally
an accident when we keep the
path. The pupil of the schools
may look down with pitying
glance upon the unfortunate
victim of what seems to be his
sin. He may point to a love
that will forgive and kindly
plead with him to take another
path, but the wayfarer that
the skeleton has taught will
48



clasp this fellow mortal to his
heart, for in his face he sees
but the reflection of himself.
The wise and good may forgive the evil and the wrong,
but only the sinner knows
that there is no sin.
The charity that is born of
life and sin is not fine because
of its effect on some one else,
but for what it does for us.
True charity is only the sense
of the kinship of all living
things. This is the charity
that neither humiliates nor
offends. It is the sense that
brings a new meaning to life
and a new purpose to the soul.
Let us do simple justice to
49



this neglected, outcast guest,
the useful, faithful teacher of
our lives.  Let us open    the
closet door, and let the skeleton
come out, and lock the schoolmaster in its place.    Let us
leave this faithful friend to
roam freely at its will. Let us
look it squarely in the face
with neither fear or shame,
but with gratitude for the lessons it has taught.  It may be
that the jeering   crowd will
point in scorn as they see us
with the grewsome figure at
our side, but when we fully
learn the lesson that it came to
teach, we shall need to look
no more without for the ap5o



proval or disapproval of our
acts, but seek to satisfy ourselves alone. Let us place a
new chair beside the hearth,
in the cosiest nook, and bid
the skeleton take its place as
the worthiest guest. Let us
neither parade nor hide our
new-found friend, but treat it
as a fact of life --a fact that is,
a fact that had the right to be,
and a fact that taught us how
to find ourselves. Let us not
forget the parents, who watch
us in our youth, and the friends
that were ever good and true.
But above all, let us remember
this grim and silent teacher, who
never neglected or forgot, who
5I



showed us life as only it could
show, who opened up new
vistas to our soul, who touched
our human hearts, who made
us know and love our fellowman, who softened and mellowed and purified our souls
until we felt the kinship that
we bore to all living things.
Until it came we knew only
the surface of the world. Before it came, we had tasted of
the shallow cup of joy and the
bitter cup of pain, but we
needed this to teach us from
the anguish of the soul that
there is a depth profound and
great, where pain and pleasure
both are one. That there is a
52



life so deep   and  true  that
earth's rewards and penalties
alike are but a hollow show;
that there is a conquest of
ourselves, which brings perfect
peace and perfect rest.

53