He has not the energy, even if he had the inclination.

A rascal, to be at all successful, must be brisk, and an observer of times and seasons, and that is altogether out of Ned's line.

No; he'll be careless about what he does, and about what people think of him; he will lend a sovereign with as little idea of getting it back as he has of returning the pound he himself had borrowed; he will think nothing of keeping a friend waiting half a day; neither will he take offence if his own good nature is drawn on to an unlimited extent.
He is, after his fashion, an observer of the golden rule, for although he is constantly annoying and exasperating people by his easy-going ways, he is never afflicted if others do _to him_ as he does to them.
He goes through life with the notion that every one is as complaisant and comfortable as himself.

"Easy-going-ness" (if one may coin a word for the occasion) is, many people would say, a combination of selfishness and stupidity, but I think such people judge rather too hardly of Ned and his compeers.

It's all very well for some of us, who perhaps are of an active turn of mind, to talk about curing oneself of this fault; but perhaps, if we knew all, we should find that it would be about as easy as for a fair-complexioned person to make himself dark.
Ned's disposition is due more to his constitution than his upbringing, and those who are blindly intolerant of his ways do him a wrong.