Here and there, however, we do meet a spirit
with sufficient will and originality to press the scale down this way
or that, though even then the opposing force, be it good or evil, is
constantly striving to bring the balance equal. Even the most wicked
men have their redeeming points and righteous instincts, nor are their
thoughts continually fixed upon iniquity. Mr. Quest, for instance, one
of the evil geniuses of this history, was, where his plots and
passions were not immediately concerned, a man of eminently generous
and refined tendencies. Many were the good turns, contradictory as it
may seem, that he had done to his poorer neighbours; he had even been
known to forego his bills of costs, which is about the highest and
rarest exhibition of earthly virtue that can be expected from a
lawyer. He was moreover eminently a cultured man, a reader of the
classics, in translations if not in the originals, a man with a fine
taste in fiction and poetry, and a really sound and ripe
archaeological knowledge, especially where sacred buildings were
concerned. All his instincts, also, were towards respectability. His
most burning ambition was to secure a high position in the county in
which he lived, and to be classed among the resident gentry. He hated
his lawyer's work, and longed to accumulate sufficient means to be
able to give it the good-bye and to indulge himself in an existence of
luxurious and learned leisure.
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