fforts. By simply allowing the
trial and sentence of Felix to take their course, he would, to all
appearance, strengthen the possibility that by marriage to Esther his
position shall be maintained, with the further joy of having that "white
new-winged dove" thenceforth by his side. He comes forward as witness on
behalf of Felix, and gives his evidence fairly, truly, and in such guise
as makes it tell most favourably for the accused, and at the same time
against himself; and, last and most touching of all, it is after he knows
the full depth of the humiliation in which his mother's sin has for life
involved him, that his first exhibition of tenderness, sympathy, and
confidence towards that poor stricken heart and blighted life comes
forth. How comes it that this "well-tanned man of the world" thus always
chooses the higher and more difficult right; and does this in no
excitement or enthusiasm, but coolly, calculatingly, with clear
forecasting of all the consequences, and fairly entitled to assume that
these shall be to his own peril or detriment?

We cannot assign this seeming anomaly to that undefinable something
called the instinct of the gentleman, {29} so specially recognised in the
elder and younger Debarry, as a reality and power in life. To say
nothing of the fact that this instinct deals primarily with questions of
feeling, and only indirectly and incidentally with questions of moral
right, Harold Transome, alike congenitally and circumstantially, could
scarcely by possibility have been animated by it even in slight degree,
nor does it ever betray its presence in him through those slight but
graceful courtesies of life which are pre-eminently the sphere of its
manifestation. Equally untenable is the hypothesis which ascribes these
manifestations of character wholly to the influence of a nature higher
than his own appealing to him--that of Felix Holt, the glorious old
Dissenter, or Esther Lyon. Such appeals can have any avail only when in
the nature appealed to there remains the capability to recognise that
right is greater than success or joy, and the moral power of will to act
on that recognition. In the fact that Harold's nature does respond to
these appeals we have the clue to the apparent anomaly his character
presents. We see that, howsoever overlaid by temperament and restrained
by circumstance, the noblest capability in man still survives and is
active in him. He _can_ choose the right which imperi