Part 32 (1/2)

”But surely,” said Florimel, not in the least aware that she was changing sides, ”a man ought to hold by the rights that birth and inheritance give him.”

”That is by no means so clear, my lady,” returned Malcolm, ”as you seem to think. A man may be bound to hold by things that are his rights, but certainly not because they are rights. One of the grandest things in having rights is that, being your rights, you may give them up--except, of course, they involve duties with the performance of which the abnegation would interfere.”

”I have been trying to think,” said Lady Clementina, ”what can be the two good things here to choose between.”

”That is the right question, and logically put, my lady,” rejoined Malcolm, who, from his early training, could not help sometimes putting on the schoolmaster. ”The two good things are--let me see--yes--on the one hand the protection of the lady to whom he owed all possible devotion of man to woman, and on the other what he owed to his tenants, and perhaps to society in general--yes --as the owner of wealth and position. There is generosity on the one side and dry duty on the other.”

”But this was no case of mere love to the lady, I think,” said Clementina. ”Did Mr Tyrrel not owe Miss Mowbray what reparation lay in his power? Was it not his tempting of her to a secret marriage, while yet she was nothing more than a girl, that brought the mischief upon her?”

”That is the point,” said Malcolm, ”that makes the one difficulty.

Still, I do not see how there can be much of a question. He could have no right to do fresh wrong for the mitigation of the consequences of preceding wrong--to sacrifice others to atone for injuries done by himself.”

”Where would be the wrong to others?” said Florimel, now back to her former position. ”Why could it matter to tenants or society which of the brothers happened to be an earl?”

”Only this, that, in the one case, the landlord of his tenants, the earl in society, would be an honourable man, in the other, a villain--a difference which might have consequences.”

”But,” said Lady Clementina, ”is not generosity something more than duty--something higher, something beyond it?”

”Yes,” answered Malcolm, ”so long as it does not go against duty, but keeps in the same direction, is in harmony with it. I doubt much, though, whether, as we grow in what is good, we shall not come soon to see that generosity is but our duty, and nothing very grand and beyond it. But the man who chooses to be generous at the expense of justice, even if he give up at the same time everything of his own, is but a poor creature beside him who, for the sake of the right, will not only consent to appear selfish in the eyes of men, but will go against his own heart and the comfort of those dearest to him. The man who accepts a crown may be more n.o.ble than he who lays one down and retires to the desert. Of the worthies who do things by faith, some are sawn asunder, and some subdue kingdoms. The look of the thing is nothing.”

Florimel made a neat little yawn over her work. Clementina's hands rested a moment in her lap, and she looked thoughtful. But she resumed her work, and said no more. Malcolm began to read again.

Presently Clementina interrupted him. She had not been listening.

”Why should a man want to be better than his neighbours, any more than to be richer?” she said, as if uttering her thoughts aloud.

”Why, indeed,” responded Malcolm, ”except he wants to become a hypocrite?”

”Then, why do you talk for duty against generosity?”

”Oh!” said Malcolm, for a moment perplexed. He did not at once catch the relation of her ideas. ”Does a man ever do his duty,” he rejoined at length, ”in order to be better than his neighbours.”

If he does, he won't do it long. A man does his duty because he must. He has no choice but do it.”

”If a man has no choice, how is it that so many men choose to do wrong?” asked Clementina.

”In virtue of being slaves and stealing the choice,” replied Malcolm.

”You are playing with words,” said Clementina.

”If I am, at least I am not playing with things,” returned Malcolm.

”If you like it better, my lady, I will say that, in declaring he has no choice, the man with all his soul chooses the good, recognizing it as the very necessity of his nature.”

”If I know in myself that I have a choice, all you say goes for nothing,” persisted Clementina. ”I am not at all sure I would not do wrong for the sake of another. The more one preferred what was right, the greater would be the sacrifice.”

”If it was for the grandeur of it, my lady, that would be for the man's own sake, not his friend's.”

”Leave that out then,” said Clementina.

”The more a man loved another, then--say a woman, as here in the story--it seems to me, the more willing would he be that she should continue to suffer rather than cease by wrong. Think, my lady: the essence of wrong is injustice: to help another by wrong is to do injustice to somebody you do not know well enough to love for the sake of one you do know well enough to love. What honest man could think of that twice? The woman capable of accepting such a sacrifice would be contemptible.”

”She need not know of it.”