There are
times when I really feel that Harrington should ask Abdul Hamid's
pardon.
But no; he should _not_ beg his pardon. For that is just the point I set
out to make. It is a moral tonic to be brought into touch with Bob's
opinion of Abdul Hamid, and to get to feel that things are not all a
hodge-podge, indifferently good or indifferently bad, as you choose to
look at it. In Bob's world there are good things and bad things, and the
good is good and the bad is bad. Bob knows nothing of the cant which
makes the robber monopolist only the sad victim of forces outside his
control. Bob knows nothing of the sentimental twaddle about that
interesting class of people who are more sinned against than sinning.
Bob, like Nature, indulges in no fine distinctions. When he meets a bad
Sultan he punches his head. When he meets a good Sultan, nothing is too
good to believe concerning him.
And he accepts the one as naturally as he does the other. He has no
moral enthusiasms or enthusiasms of any kind. It is merely an obvious
thing to him that right should triumph and wrong should fail.
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