"Whether are men or women most selfish, I should like to know?"
"Men, decidedly! From six years old, till sixty, they seem born and brought up to think of no one's comfort but their own, and they always marry to please themselves!"
"Of course! and very right they should!"
Agnes had now got upon a favorite subject of declamation, the selfishness of mankind,—for those who are selfish or ill-tempered themselves, live always under the delusion that they are the only persons living entirely exempt from such faults,—but her eloquence now soon left her "in possession of the house," as Sir Patrick made a rapid retreat, followed by that very effective slamming of the door, so infallible a receipt for obtaining the last word in an argument, and for asserting in undoubted terms, a very decided view of the subject in question.
Though Sir Patrick Dunbar had long been known as a Tattersall and Doncaster man, yet Clara Granville had little suspected that his name was implicated in transactions of rather an equivocal complection, while the good-natured half of the world persevered in calling it scandal, being unwilling very severely to censure the peccadilloes of the handsomest and most agreeable man in their circle of society, living only for the enjoyment of the senses and the happiness of the present hour, while he thought it too long a look-out to anticipate what might happen the day after to-morrow. In respect to Sir Patrick's reputation, a vague understanding seemed to prevail that all was not right, yet no explicit explanation seemed ever to be obtained.
Some thing there was—what, none presumed to say,
Clouds lightly passing as the summer day.
There are not only faults in the very best characters, but redeeming qualities also in the very worst, and with much selfishness, the result of a perverted education, the handsome and fascinating Sir Patrick had naturally a good temper and excitable affections, though these were wound up occasionally to the wildest excess, while his fortune was not more recklessly squandered than his attachment in the momentary impulse of an hour.
As, therefore, no man is so thoroughly excellent as to be without errors, neither is any living mortal so depraved as to be without virtues, and the utmost extreme, in one respect or the other, will only be perfected in an eternal world. It often seems to an observer, as if two opposite beings had been kneaded into one, since qualities so contradictory may be traced in the same individual.
Though Sir Patrick Dunbar was eager and rapacious in acquiring money, and would incur any meanness to avoid paying it, he seemed, nevertheless, lavish, and what some people mis-called generous, in squandering what he called his own. Though cold and selfish in general, some fine impulses had been in his nature, which proved him capable of vehement, persevering, and passionate attachment, where his affections, or rather his fancy, had been once engaged; while, at the same time, he was more ashamed to testify any feeling than he would have been to commit a crime, and endeavored to blind people towards that sensibility which was in reality the redeeming point in his character, by talking often with the utmost contempt and even ridicule of all those for whom he might have been supposed to feel the weakness of a real attachment.