“Yes, indeed,” said Ruth.
“To be strong to help and strong to do, not overcome with world-sorrow,” I said, “to face suffering in ourselves and others as something to be overcome and used!”
Virginia spoke of a curious calmness in herself that made her not act excitedly when anything happened, but always wait first to see the outcome. “If a child falls in the street,” she said, “I don’t go rushing toward it as some people do, but wait to see if it will pick itself up.”
“But if it fell out of a window,” said Ruth, “I suppose you would rush forward.”
“No,” she answered, “not unless it were necessary. I would wait to see what happened. When my hat blows off, I never go rushing after it till I see where it is going to stop.”
The juxtaposition of a falling child and a falling hat was disconcerting.
“I know how Virginia feels,” I said; “it is the artist in her always looking on at all that happens. It is a good way, too. Now what other virtues are there, like justice, that are really substitutes for right feeling?”
They could not think of the others. So I mentioned honesty, which is much like justice—even a form of it; steered clear of a reef of arguments on truth-telling, showed them how honesty would not even be mentioned where there was perfect love, and went on to the next and most important, namely, duty. They had not thought of it in this way before. They all disliked the word duty.
I spoke again of the girl who stays home from the theatre with some one she does not love, because she feels it to be her duty. Why does she do it?
“Because she chooses,” said Alfred; “she wants to do it most.”