pg. 416-417
When the maid appeared, disappeared, reappeared, and finally vanished, Atherton resumed, “The natural goodness doesn’t count. The natural man is a wild beast, and his natural goodness is the amiability of a beast basking in the sun when his belly is full. The Hubbards were full of natural goodness, I dare say, when they didn’t happen to cross each other’s wishes. No, it’s the implanted goodness that saves,- the seed of righteousness treasured from generation to generation, and carefully watched and tended by disciplined fathers and mothers in the hearts where they had dropped it. The flower of this implanted goodness is what we call civilization, the condition of general uprightness that Halleck declared he owed no allegiance to. But he was better than his word.”
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