human
After all, he contended,
gpt
Utility?
human
Yes; utility to one's neighbors or the community at large. For instance, I desire an apple growing on somebody else's tree--one of the big red apples that hang over the roadside in Ontario. Now the longing for the fruit is natural, and innocent in itself; the trouble is that if it were indulged in and gratified by every person who passed along the road, the farmer would abandon the cultivation of his orchard. He would neither plant nor prune his trees, except for the expectation of enjoying what they yield. The offense, accordingly, concerns everybody who enjoys apples.
gpt
I believe that idea is the basis of our minor social and domestic codes. Even when they're illogical in particular cases, they're necessary in general.
human
I don't think Carroll's correct. The traditional view, which, as I understand it, is that the sense of right is innate, ingrained in man's nature, seems more reasonable. I'll give you two instances. There was a man in charge of a little mine. He had had the crudest education, and no moral training, but he was an excellent miner. Well, he was given a hint that it was not desirable the mine should turn out much paying ore.
gpt
But why wasn't it required to produce as much as possible?
human
I believe that somebody wanted to break down the value of the shares and afterward quietly buy them up. Anyway, though he knew it would result in his dismissal, the man I mentioned drove the boys his hardest. He worked savagely, taking risks he could have avoided by spending a little more time in precautions, in a badly timbered tunnel. He didn't reason--he was hardly capable of it--but he got the most out of the mine.
gpt
It was fine of him!
human
The engineer of a collier figures in the next case. Vane went on.
gpt
The engines were clumsy and badly finished, but the man spent his care and labor on them until I think he loved them. His only trouble was that he was sent to sea with second-rate oils and stores. After a while they grew so bad that he could hardly use them; and he had reasons for believing that a person who could dismiss or promote him was getting a big commission on the goods. He was a plain, unreasoning man; but he would not cripple his engines; and at last he condemned the stores and made the skipper purchase supplies he could use, at double the usual prices, in a foreign port. There could be only one result; he was driving a pump in a mine when I last met him.
human
It wasn't logic, it wasn't even conventional morality, that impelled these men. It was something that was part of them. What's more, men of their type are more common than the cynics believe.
gpt
There's one point that Wallace omitted to mention in connection with his tales, he remarked.
human
The things he narrated are precisely those which, on being given the opportunity, he would have pleasure in doing himself.
gpt
Why pleasure? I could understand his doing them, but I'd expect him to feel some reluctance.
human
He gets indignant now and then. Virtuous people are generally content to resist temptation, but Wallace is apt to attack the tempter. I dare say it isn't wise, but that's the kind of man he is.
gpt
Ah! One couldn't find fault with the type. But I wonder why you have taken the trouble to tell me this?
human
Really, I don't know. Somehow, I have an impression that I ought to say what I can in Wallace's favor, if only because he brought me here, and I feel like talking when I can get a sympathetic listener.
gpt
I shouldn't have imagined the latter was indispensable, laughed Evelyn.
human
Is this visit all you owe Wallace?
gpt
No, indeed. In many ways, I owe him a good deal more. He has no idea of this, but it doesn't lessen my obligation. By the way, it struck me that in many respects Miss Vane is rather like her brother.
human
Lucy is opinionative, and now and then embarrassingly candid, but she leads a life that most of us would shrink from. It isn't necessary that she should do so--family friends would have arranged things differently--and the tasks she's paid for are less than half her labors. I believe she generally gets abuse as a reward for the rest.