CROOKED VIRTUES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XX, 15 May 1897, Page 619

CROOKED VIRTUES.

Writing in the Queen, Mm Lynn Linton says : —* One need not be a cynic to be able to appraise certain actions as of lower moral merit than they are of social value. As actions, pnre and simple, they are comfortable and comforting, and the proximate canse rales as a virtue. Bnt dig to the roots and yon will come upon motives that are anything but meritorious —upon virtues as crooked as vices, and upon qualities which are neither praiseworthy nor lovable. This seems as paradoxical as unjust, and to be the worst possible breaking of the old command not to look a gifthorse in the month, but to take the good things which come to us as we take the sunshine and the summer rain—that is without inquiring into the how or the why. Yet it is true, and neither paradoxical nor unjust, save when unwisely applied—as is the case with those suspicious souls which must find a moral wire worm at the root of all kindly actions, and who cannot believe in the simplicity of anyone. For these we have no sympathy, and can hold with them no discussion ; our dealings are only with the reasonable, who can dissect fairly and argue logically. To go behind a man’s motives is a thing always deprecated by men with men. Yet commonsense demands that sometimes we should do so; and knowledge of human nature is as the solution of a riddle when a good thing is done by an evil character, and from a bad motive. Take the case of economy in management by an administrator of your affairs. He may be a manager of large works, or a domestic servant in your kitchen. The size of the canvas determines the size of the picture, but the relative merits of design and workmanship remain the same in each alike. Well, your administrator charms you by his careful rescission of all unnecessary margins—by his plugging up all unnecessary sources of outflow—by his curtailing on the one hand and utilising on the other —and by the dragon-like ferocity with which he pounces upon a reckless delinquent or a hitherto unnoticed extravagance. The subordinates hate him, naturally enough; but the owners and masters, whose interests he guards, swear by him as the good and faithful servant they can never sufficiently reward. So things go on, and there is never a breath of suspicion that your manager or your cook is dishonest. Bub when you come to closer quarters—when you find in the character of the one you have had reason to trust, and whose administration has been advantageous to you, avarice, stinginess, inhumanity, as the elemental soil from which sprang the active results, what can you say but that the virtue of hie or her economy is as crooked as vice, and is indeed rooted in vice ? For want of genial human feeling, no extras, no privileges are allowed. For want of generosity no perquisites go to fatten the meagre salary—perquisites hitherto taken into consideration when the wages were fixed. For want of all pity for suffering, the delicate in health have no indulgences granted them, just to tide over the bad moment. Everything is pared to the quick, till it comes to his or her lawful takings. Then yon see the roots. There you lay bare the causes —there yon can measure the intrinsic moral worth of all this activity of economy, and you come to the conclusion embodied in our text—the virtues which have wrought so well for you are crooked, distorted, diseased —in their essence vices, however pleasant the practical results