"I am not very sure," answered his companion, musing; "I have thought over these matters a good deal, and I am not fond of splitting hairs about right and wrong. If a man does not do what he ought, he does what he ought not. 'Sins of omission,' as the parson calls them, are, to my mind, sins of commission, as soon as ever a man knows what he ought to do, and does not do it. I have a notion, Chandos, all these fine differences are only ways by which people cheat themselves to avoid self-reproach; and, I believe, what foolish people call the higher classes, are taught to do so more than any others by reading the classics; for a more wicked sort of worthless scoundrels than those old Greeks and Romans never was. The very best of them contrived to mix up so much bad with their best doings, that young lads at school learn not to know right from wrong, and to think things exceedingly fine that were very dirty."
"But there were some truly good and great men amongst them," replied Chandos, whiled away for a moment from himself by his companion's conversation: "they might be too stern and severe, perhaps, in their adherence to right; but still excess of virtue is not likely to lead others wrong who make it their example."
"I'll give you the advantage of the best of them," said Lockwood, "and be bound to pick a hole in any of their coats. We all know about Socrates, a nasty old he-goat, and won't talk of him. But take Lycurgus for an example, I mean, the Spartan. Now what he did to his countrymen would have been nothing better than swindling, if it had been about money instead of laws. He took an oath from them to do certain things till he came back from Delphi; and that certainly implied that it was his intention to come back. But instead of that, he went away from Delphi to Crete, for the express purpose of cheating the Spartans; had his old bones cast into the sea, that they might not play him as good a trick as he had played them; and left his laws to Sparta, and his name to immortality. But if I were to say to any man, 'Lend me five pounds till I come back from London,' and instead of going back, were to run away to Paris, just to avoid my creditor, what would be said of me? Now because the laws of Lycurgus were good, people think that his imposition was glorious; and thus they learn that Jesuitical maxim of the end justifying the means."
"I agree with you so far," said Chandos, gravely, "that there was a great deal of false philosophy, if I may use the term, amongst the ancients: and I am thoroughly convinced that the only true philosophy that ever was propounded to man is to be found in the Bible."
"Archimedes was the greatest man amongst them," rejoined Lockwood, following the course of his own thoughts, a habit of which he was very fond; "and in the study of his life and character, no great harm could be done to any one. But at our schools and colleges, what between Roman emperors, Greek magistrates, and gods and goddesses, we are brought all at once in our early youth into the midst of a crowd of rogues, prostitutes, and libertines, only fit for the back streets of a great town."
Unwittingly, Chandos had been led from many a grave memory and painful consideration to topics which had often engaged his youthful mind; and he replied, with a gay laugh, which showed how naturally light and cheerful was the spirit when free from the oppressive weight of circumstances: "As to the gods and goddesses, I agree with you entirely. There was not a lady amongst them who, in our times, would not have figured in the Arches Court; and as to the men, Apollo was the most gentlemanlike person of the whole, and yet he would have been transported for rape or hanged for felony long ago."
In such easy conversation they went on for half an hour more. It is no figure, but a certainty, that imagination has a charm--I mean, a power unaccountable, and almost magical, of wrapping the mind in a golden mist of its own, which hides or softens all the hard features of the scene around. But often, as with the fabled spells of the necromancer, the slightest thing--a word, a tone, a look--will waft away the pleasant veil, and restore the heart in a moment to the cold and black reality. Such was the case with Chandos. Something apparently indifferent threw him back into deep thought; and after a long pause, he started up, saying, "This is very strange, to be sitting here beside you, Lockwood, within three days! But come, let us seek the bundle I have lost. The clouds are clearing away. There is a gleam of sunshine. When will the like fall upon my fate?"
"Before long, if you are strong-hearted," answered the other, rising also. "One half of every man's fate is his own making; the other half is made for him. Fortune's store is like one of those shops at a country fair, where there are a number of articles of different value, and of different use, each at the price of sixpence. Your sixpence you must pay; but then you have your choice, if you choose but wisely."
"I am not sure of the choice," said Chandos with a sigh; "but I will choose soon, at all events:" and he walked towards the door.
"Stay a minute," cried Lockwood; "I will take my gun. We may find some teal by the wear; and you will want dinner."