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Fear will deter from acknowledged crimes, and self-interest will bribe to laborious services: but it is the peculiar glory, and the very characteristic, of this more generous passion, to shew itself in ten thousand little and undefinable acts of sedulous attention, which love alone can pay, and of which, when paid, love alone can estimate the value.
"I certainly shall have the estate properly guarded. So it is to be war, is it? Very good, then we shall make war. That doesn't frighten me," said Montcornet, rubbing his hands. "A war of francs," said Sibilet; "and you may find that more difficult than the other kind; men can be killed but you can't kill self-interest.
Yet the most casual thinker must see the strength as well as the simplicity of a plan which would make skill and fidelity in service the only road to success. Self-interest, if nothing else, would stimulate our Katies and Bridgets, our Dinahs and our Gretchens, to keep a place, if it were not so wickedly easy to "make a change."
He intimated, moreover, that these pretences of clemency were mere hypocrisy, and that self-interest was at the bottom of their compassion. "'Tis very black," said he, "when interest governs; but these men are a in debt, so deeply that they owe their very souls. They are seeking every means of escaping from their obligations, and are most desirous of creating general confusion."
Most of all I diagnosed him as economical of himself, of his men and of his possessions, especially of cash; as swayed by self-interest alone, as flinty-hearted; yet as capable of kindliness when it did not interfere with his plans and was not too expensive. I waited in silence for him to speak. He said: "I am a very busy man, even far too busy.
If we examine the Labor Union and the Closed Shop, and Strikes and Socialism and Bolshevism, and all those other kindred isms, we can see, readily enough, that the under side of them all is tarred with the same brush self-interest, selfishness, greed, individual and collective, and reason, argument, excuse, more or less distorted and perverted, but more or less enlightened by the principles of modern Science, as they appear to the average intellect.
Now, to my mind, though his preferring to be 'a secret agent' to becoming a generalissimo of the Polish cavalry is as modest as it is original, Ralpho is too 'goody-goody' to be called 'the Mysterious. He reminds me, too, in his way of mixing chivalry with self-interest, of those enterprising officers in fighting regiments who send in applications for their own V.C.s while their comrades remain in modest expectation of them.
He had known Maltravers ambitious; and with him, ambition and self-interest meant the same. Thus, by the very finesse of his character while Vargrave ever with the worldly was a keen and almost infallible observer with natures of a more refined, or a higher order, he always missed the mark by overshooting.
The whole institution of Law saw nothing out of the way in these conditions, and very significantly so, because, to repeat over and over again, Law did not represent the ethics or ideals of advanced humanity; it exactly reflected, as a pool reflects the sky, the demands and self-interest of the growing propertied classes.
"Yes, yes, one owes a great duty to oneself and one's work, John. You are risking too much name, friends, honor, work, freedom. For God's sake, John, do not underestimate the danger. You have not had time to consider it." "Ho! Listen to the parson preaching self-interest!" he mocked. "He's a fine one to do that at this hour of his life!" "I tell you you endanger everything," I insisted.
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