The man had been born and reared in
vice; vice had fed him, clothed him, freed him, given him character,
reputation, power in his own small way--he lived in it as in the
atmosphere that he breathed; to show him an action, referable only to a
principle of pure integrity, was to set him a problem which it was
hopeless to solve. And yet it is impossible, in one point of view, to
pronounce him utterly worthless. Ignorant of all distinctions between
good and bad, he thought wrong from sheer inability to see right.
However his instructions might perplex him, he followed them now--and
continued in after days to follow them--to the letter. If to serve
one's own interests be an art, of that art Carrio deserved to be head
professor. He arrived at the farm-house, not only punctually, but
before the appointed time, and calling the honest husbandman and the
labourers about him, explained to them every particular of the authority
that his patron had vested in him, with a flowing and peremptory
solemnity of speech which equally puzzled and impressed his simple
audience.
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