The Vicar's Daughter, George MacDonald [important books to read .txt] 📗

“An unjust god,” said Mr. Blackstone, with the honest evasion of one who will not answer an awful question hastily, “must be a false god, that is, no god. Therefore I presume there is some higher truth involved in every fact that appears unjust, the perception of which would nullify the appearance.”

“I see none in the present case,” said Roger.

“I will go farther than assert the mere opposite,” returned Mr. Blackstone. “I will assert that it is an honor to us to have the sins of our fathers laid upon us. For thus it is given into our power to put a stop to them, so that they shall descend no farther. If I thought my father had committed any sins for which I might suffer, I should be unspeakably glad to suffer for them, and so have the privilege of taking a share in his burden, and some of the weight of it off his mind. You see the whole idea is that of a family, in which we are so grandly bound together, that we must suffer with and for each other. Destroy this consequence, and you destroy the lovely idea itself, with all its thousand fold results of loveliness.”

“You anticipate what I was going to say, Mr. Blackstone,” said Lady Bernard. “I would differ from you only in one thing. The chain of descent is linked after such a complicated pattern, that the non-conducting condition of one link, or of many links even, cannot break the transmission of qualities. I may inherit from my great-great-grandfather or mother, or some one ever so much farther back. That which was active wrong in some one or other of my ancestors, may appear in me as an impulse to that same wrong, which of course I have to overcome; and if I succeed, then it is so far checked. But it may have passed, or may yet pass, to others of his descendants, who have, or will have, to do the same—for who knows how many generations to come?—before it shall cease. Married people, you see, Mrs. Percivale, have an awful responsibility in regard of the future of the world. You cannot tell to how many millions you may transmit your failures or your victories.”

“If I understand you right, Lady Bernard,” said Roger, “it is the personal character of your ancestors, and not their social position, you regard as of importance.”

“It was of their personal character alone I was thinking. But of course I do not pretend to believe that there are not many valuable gifts more likely to show themselves in what is called a long descent; for doubtless a continuity of education does much to develop the race.”

“But if it is personal character you chiefly regard, we may say we are all equally far descended,” I remarked; “for we have each had about the same number of ancestors with a character of some sort or other, whose faults and virtues have to do with ours, and for both of which we are, according to Mr. Blackstone, in a most real and important sense accountable.”

“Certainly,” returned Lady Bernard; “and it is impossible to say in whose descent the good or the bad may predominate. I cannot tell, for instance, how much of the property I inherit has been honestly come by, or is the spoil of rapacity and injustice.”

“You are doing the best you can to atone for such a possible fact, then, by its redistribution,” said my husband.

“I confess,” she answered, “the doubt has had some share in determining my feeling with regard to the management of my property. I have no right to throw up my stewardship, for that was none of my seeking, and I do not know any one who has a better claim to it; but I count it only a stewardship. I am not at liberty to throw my orchard open, for that would result not only in its destruction, but in a renewal of the fight of centuries ago for its possession; but I will try to distribute my apples properly. That is, I have not the same right to give away foolishly that I have to keep wisely.”

“Then,” resumed Roger, who had evidently been pondering what Lady Bernard had previously said, “you would consider what is called kleptomania as the impulse to steal transmitted by a thief-ancestor?”

“Nothing seems to me more likely. I know a nobleman whose servant has to search his pockets for spoons or forks every night as soon as he is in bed.”

“I should find it very hard to define the difference between that and stealing,” said Miss Clare, now first taking a part in the conversation. “I have sometimes wondered whether kleptomania was not merely the fashionable name for stealing.”

“The distinction is a difficult one, and no doubt the word is occasionally misapplied. But I think there is a difference. The nobleman to whom I referred makes no objection to being thus deprived of his booty; which, for one thing, appears to show that the temptation is intermittent, and partakes at least of the character of a disease.”

“But are there not diseases which are only so much the worse diseases that they are not intermittent?” said Miss Clare. “Is it not hard that the privileges of kleptomania should be confined to the rich? You never hear the word applied to a poor child, even if his father was, habit and repute, a thief. Surely, when hunger and cold aggravate the attacks of inherited temptation, they cannot at the same time aggravate the culpability of yielding to them?”

“On the contrary,” said Roger, “one would naturally suppose they added immeasurable excuse.”

“Only,” said Mr. Blackstone, “there comes in our ignorance, and consequent inability to judge. The very fact of the presence of motives of a most powerful kind renders it impossible to be certain of the presence of the disease; whereas other motives being apparently absent, we presume disease as the readiest way of accounting for the propensity; I do not therefore think it is the only way. I believe there are cases in which it comes of pure greed, and is of the same kind as any other injustice the capability of exercising which is more generally distributed. Why should a thief be unknown in a class, a proportion of the members of which is capable of wrong, chicanery, oppression, indeed any form of absolute selfishness?”

“At all events,” said Lady Bernard, “so long as we do our best to help them to grow better, we cannot make too much allowance for such as have not only been born with evil impulses, but have had every animal necessity to urge them in the same direction; while, on the other hand, they have not had one of those restraining influences which a good home and education would have afforded. Such must, so far as development goes, be but a little above the beasts.”

“You open a very difficult question,” said Mr. Morley: “What are we to do with them? Supposing they are wild beasts, we can’t shoot them; though that would, no doubt, be the readiest way to put an end to the breed.”

“Even that would not suffice,” said Lady Bernard. “There would always be a deposit from the higher classes sufficient to keep up the breed. But, Mr. Morley, I did not say wild beasts: I only said beasts. There is a great difference between a tiger and a sheep-dog.”

“There is nearly as much between a Seven-Dialsrough and a sheep-dog.”

“In moral attainment, I grant you,” said Mr. Blackstone; “but in moral capacity, no. Besides, you must remember, both what a descent the sheep-dog has, and what pains have been taken with his individual education, as well as that of his ancestors.”

“Granted all that,” said Mr. Morley, “there the fact remains. For my part, I confess I don’t see what is to be done. The class to which you refer goes on increasing. There’s this garrotting now. I spent a winter at Algiers lately, and found even the suburbs of that city immeasurably safer than any part of London is now, to judge from the police-reports. Yet I am accused of inhumanity and selfishness if I decline to write a check for every shabby fellow who calls upon me pretending to be a clergyman, and to represent this or that charity in the East End!”

“Things are bad enough in the West End, within a few hundred yards of Portland Place, for instance,” murmured Miss Clare.

“It seems to me highly unreasonable,” Mr. Morley went on. “Why should I spend my money to perpetuate such a condition of things?”

“That would in all likelihood be the tendency of your subscription,” said Mr. Blackstone.

“Then why should I?” repeated Mr. Morley with a smile of triumph.

“But,” said Miss Clare, in an apologetic tone, “it seems to me you make a mistake in regarding the poor as if their poverty were the only distinction by which they could be classified. The poor are not all thieves and garroters, nor even all unthankful and unholy. There are just as strong and as delicate distinctions too, in that stratum of social existence as in the upper strata. I should imagine Mr. Morley knows a few, belonging to the same social grade with himself, with whom, however, he would be sorry to be on any terms of intimacy.”

“Not a few,” responded Mr. Morley with a righteous frown.

“Then I, who know the poor as well at least as you can know the rich, having lived amongst them almost from childhood, assert that I am acquainted with not a few, who, in all the essentials of human life and character, would be an honor to any circle.”

“I should be sorry to seem to imply that there may not be very worthy people amongst them, Miss Clare; but it is not such who draw our attention to the class.”

“Not such who force themselves upon your attention certainly,” said Miss Clare; “but the existence of such may be an additional reason for bestowing some attention on the class to which they belong. Is there not such a mighty fact as the body of Christ? Is there no connection between the head and the feet?”

“I had not the slightest purpose of disputing the matter with you, Miss Clare,” said Mr. Morley—I thought rudely, for who would use the word disputing at a dinner-table? “On the contrary, being a practical man, I want to know what is to be done. It is doubtless a great misfortune to the community that there should be such sinks in our cities; but who is to blame for it?—that is the question.”

“Every man who says, Am I my brother’s keeper? Why, just consider, Mr. Morley: suppose in a family there were one less gifted than the others, and that in consequence they all withdrew from him, and took no interest in his affairs: what would become of him? Must he not sink?”

“Difference of rank is a divine appointment,—you must allow that. If there were not a variety of grades, the social machine would soon come to a stand-still.”

“A strong argument for taking care of the smallest wheel, for all the parts are interdependent. That there should be different classes is undoubtedly a divine intention, and not to be turned aside. But suppose the less-gifted boy is fit for some manual labor; suppose he takes to carpentering, and works well, and keeps the house tidy, and every thing in good repair, while his brothers pursue their studies and prepare for professions beyond his reach: is the inferior boy degraded by doing the best he can? Is there any reason in the nature of things why he should sink? But he will most likely sink,