"And I tell you he believes as I do, but he hasn't pluck to act up to it. He's not even told one of his fine friends what his brother does; he says it's for the sake of his school. He's living a lie for his own pride. He's got himself made master of a college, fine as a fiddle, and he cares more about that than about his brother. With all his prayers and his sermons in church every Sunday, he'd let me go to the dogs rather than live out the truth. He thinks I've gone to the devil now, because I left him in a rage, and I told him I'd go and learn to spend my money, and drink, and swear, and gamble as a gentleman should. He thinks I've done it, and he writes and implores me, by all that's holy, to forsake evil courses; but never a word like 'Come back and set up your shop, old fellow, and I'll be your customer.' That's the amount of his religion."
"It was a hard choice ye put upon him," said Bates, solemnly.
"You think it was? Well!" The young man gave a boisterous laugh.
"For, in the first place, it's not his fault, but your own entirely, if ye go to the bad."
"I've not gone to the bad; but if I had, if I'd gone straight there, it would have been his fault."
"'Twould just have been your own. There's just one man that's responsible for your actions, and that's yourself. If your brother was a compete blackguard, instead of a good man, that's no excuse for you. God never put any man into this world and said, 'Be good if some other man is.'"
"When a man sets up to preach, and then throws away his influence over his own brother for a little finery opposition, it's more than being a blackguard. What does a man mean by standing up to preach if he doesn't mean that he's taking some responsibility for other people?"
"Well, but it wasn't he that threw away his influence over you; it was you. He never said 'Don't be influenced any more by me.' If ye thought he was an angel before then, more fool ye were, for no man is an angel. What business had you to make all the influence of his godly life condeetion on his doing right, or what you thought right, on a certain point of opinion?"
"He's living a lie, I tell you."
"I'm not sure but he's right not to have blazoned it. I'm not sure but
I'd have done the same myself."