"Precious little, my dear—I can tell you that. Patient, you are a diamond of the first water!" The last remark by way of receipt for the chocolate.
"Well, I think so! I never could have imagined that such men as the Duke of Marlborough and Dean Atterbury were eating the Queen's bread, and deceiving her every day by writing to these people and offering help."
Philip laughed. "So that is what has angered and astonished you? Why, any man in Paris could have told you that months ago. 'Tis no secret, my innocence—from any but the Princess Anne."
"'Tis rank dishonesty!" exclaimed Celia, warmly. "I don't complain of their helping this Court, but of their want of truth. If they are Jacobites, let them have the manliness to say so."
"You are such an innocent!" responded Philip, still laughing. "Why, my simple little sister, all is fair in politics, as in love and war."
"I don't see that 'all is fair' in any of the three. What is right is right, and what is wrong is wrong."
"Excellent, my logical damsel! But what are right and wrong? That is the first question. Is there a certain abstract thing called right or virtue? or does right differ according to the views or circumstances of the actor?"
"I do not understand you, Philip. To do right is to obey God, and to do wrong is to disobey God. There was no wrong in Adam's and Eve's eating fruit: what made it wrong was God's having forbidden them to touch that one tree. St. Paul says, 'Where no law is there is no transgression.'"[[34]]
"Upon my word, you are a regular divine! But—leaving St. Paul on one side for the present—how, according to your theory, shall we discover what is wrong?"
"Just by not leaving St. Paul on one side," answered Celia, smiling; "for the Bible is given us for that purpose."