"Because yesterday you were black, to-day you are white. Yesterday it was a bad world; to-day it is a good one. A rapid transformation, savouring somewhat of fickleness."
"A just reproof, but I cannot alter my nature. I have never given myself credit for much stability except in my affections, and there, I think, I am constant. As you say, a little reflection has effected a great change in me. We judge the world too much from our own stand-point. We are fortunate, we trust and are not deceived, we love and are loved in return, our daily labour is rewarded--it is a good world, a bright world. We are unfortunate, we trust and are deceived, we love and are not loved in return, we toil and reap dead leaves--it is a bad world, a black world. That is the way with us."
"All of which wise philosophy has sprung from our discovery of a rich patch of gold."
"I am afraid I can ascribe these better and juster feelings to no other cause."
"Basil," said Chaytor, toying with his pipe and tobacco, "say that your reckoning should be justified by results. Say that we work here undiscovered for a year--for there is the contingency of our being tracked to be thought of----"
"Of course."
"Say that we do not fall ill or meet with an accident which disables us, say that to-day is but a sample of all the other days to follow in the next twelve months, say that we make a hundred thousand pounds, what would you do with your share? For I suppose," said Chaytor, with a light laugh, "that the offer you once made of letting me keep the lot if we struck gold rich, is now withdrawn."
"I am properly reproved. Yes, Chaytor, I should expect my share." Basil said this in a rather shamefaced voice. "It proves in the first place that I am not a very dependable fellow, and in the second place it proves my philosophy, that we are moulded by immediate circumstances."
"Oh, it is natural enough; I never expected to meet with a man who would step out of the ordinary grooves. There are temptations which it is impossible to resist, and you and I are no different from the rest of mankind."
"I should place you above the majority, Chaytor."