Instead of blaming as a matter of course the person who does not believe in a God, we should think first whether his notional God is a God that ought, or a God that ought not to be believed in. Perhaps he only is to be blamed who, by inattention to duty, has become less able to believe in a God than he was once: because he did not obey the true voice, whencesoever it came, God may have to let him taste what it would be to have no God. For aught I know, a man may have been born of so many generations of unbelief, that now, at this moment, he cannot believe; that now, at this moment, he has no notion of a God at all, and cannot care whether there be a God or not; but he can mind what he knows he ought to mind. That will, that alone can clear the moral atmosphere, and make it possible for the true idea of a God to be born into it. For some time Richard saw little of Barbara. The heads of the house did not interfere with him. Lady Ann would now and then sail through the room like an iceberg; sir Wilton would come in, give a glance at the shelves and a grin, and walk out again with a more or less gouty gait; so much was about all their contact. Arthur was a little ashamed of having spoken to him as he did, and had again become in a manner friendly. He had seen several decaying masses, among the rest the Golding of their difference, become books in his hands, and again he had grown sufficiently interested in the workman to feel in him something more than the workman. He was on the way to perceive that, in certain insignificant things, such as imagination, reading, insight, and general faculty, not to mention conscience, generosity, and goodness of heart, Richard was out of sight before the ruck of gentlemen. He saw already that in some things, thought a good deal of at his college, Richard was more capable than himself. He found in him too what seemed to him a rare notion of art. In truth Richard's advance in this region was as yet but small, for he was guided only by his limited efforts in verse; none the less, however, was he far ahead of Arthur, who saw only what was shown him. In literature Arthur had already learned something from Richard, and knew it. He had, indeed, without knowing it, begun to look up to him. Richard also had discovered good in Arthur--among other things a careful regard to his word, and to his father's tenantry. There was of course, in a scanty nature like his, a good deal of the lord bountiful mingled with his behaviour to his social inferiors on the property: he posed to himself as a condescending landlord.