Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 21, 1896 - Miscellanies, Volume IV

LAY MORALS
apparently not true, but worthy perhaps of some con-
sideration. I should, if I were you, give some
consideration to these scruples of his, and if I were
he, I should do the like by yours ; for it is not
unlikely that there may be something under both.
In the meantime you must hear how my friend
acted. Like many invalids, he supposed that he
would die. Now should he die, he saw no means of
repaying this huge loan which, by the hands of his
father, mankind had advanced him for his sickness.
In that case it would be lost money. So he deter-
mined that the advance should be as small as
possible ; and, so long as he continued to doubt his
recovery, lived in an upper room, and grudged him-
self all but necessaries. But so soon as he began to
perceive a change for the better, he felt justified in
spending more freely, to speed and brighten his
return to health, and trusted in the future to lend
a help to mankind, as mankind, out of its treasury,
had lent a help to him.
I do not say but that my friend was a little too
curious and partial in his view ; nor thought
too much of himself and too little of his parents ;
but I do say that here are some scruples which
tormented my friend in his youth, and still, perhaps,
at odd times give him a prick in the midst of his
enjoyments, and which after all have some founda-
tion in justice, and point, in their confused way, to
some more honourable honesty within the reach of
man. And at least, is not this an unusual gloss
upon the eighth commandment ? And what sort of
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