“Only, mamma,” said Violet, with some hesitation, “all these things are agreeable to himself. He does such things because he likes to do them.”
“And ain’t that to be put to his credit,” said Miss Bethia. “It is well when one does right things and likes to do them, ain’t it?”
“Yes; but people ought to do right things because they are right, and not just because they are pleasant. If very different things were agreeable to him, he would do them all the same.”
“Stuff, Letty! with your buts and your ifs. Mr Phil, is just like other people. It is only you and Davie that have such high-flown notions about right and wrong, and duty, and all that.”
“Our ideas of ‘duty and all that’ are just like other people’s, Jem, I think,” said David. “They are just like Miss Bethia’s, at any rate, and mamma’s.”
“And like Jem’s own ideas, though not like Mr Philip’s” said Violet.
“Violet means that if he had to choose between what is right and what is pleasant, the chances are he would choose to do what is pleasant,” said Davie.
“He would not wait to choose,” said Violet, gravely. “He would just do what was pleasant without at all thinking about the other.”
“Mamma, do you call that charitable?” said Jem.
“I think Violet means—and Davie—that his actions are, as a general thing, guided and governed by impulse rather than by principle,” said Mrs Inglis; “and you know, Jem, the same reliance cannot be placed on such a person as on—”