"I'd cut him in his own house! It isn't that I set great store by marriage, I'm not in a position to do that. If he wants to be ultra-modern, let him live with her by all means—and introduce her to his people. He'd kill a man who treated his own sister like that.... Imagination! Imagination! That's the basis of the social conscience, George. If Beryl had consumption, you'd sell the shirt off your back to heal her. You'd do pretty well as much for a sister of mine. You'd write a check for a hundred pounds if I recommended a hard case to you. And because you don't hear, because you don't see the poor devils lying under your eyes...."
"Where's the damned thing to stop, Raney? There are people starving the world over."
"Thank God you recognize it! It hurts as much to starve in the Punjab as under the windows of Lake House."
"But I'm not interested in people I've never seen," I said, lighting another cigarette.
"You'd jump overboard to save a drowning man without waiting to be introduced. Human life's sacred, George: the value we attach to it is the one test of civilization I know."
"But how does one start? Take my own case and be as pointed as you like. An Irish landowner, Liberal member of Parliament, comfortable means, unmarried, without any particular desire to leave the world worse than I found it—what am I to do? Frankly, Raney, I've not got the temperament to turn vegetarian or go about in sandals. I'm part of a very conventional, stupid, artificial world; all my relations and friends are in the same galley. My soul's taken root. What am I to do?"
He picked up a second handful of gravel and jerked the stones thoughtfully into the shining water.
"D'you remember the boys in Æsop who did what I'm doing—flinging stones into a lake? It was all in fun, but they hit a frog, and the frog told them what was fun for them was death for him. If you want an everyday test, you can ask yourself over every act you do or refrain from doing whether you're causing pain to a living creature—by word, deed, thought. That's the only standard worth having, and if everyone adopted it.... As they will some day; we're growing slightly more humane...."
We had had a record bag that day: I was in good form and Bertrand could not miss a bird. I mentioned this to O'Rane to recall him to our limitation.