trial of his strength, speed and temper. A stranger comes from
a distant school, with better dress, with trinkets in his pockets, with
airs and pretensions; an older boy says to himself, 'It's of no use;
we shall find him out to-morrow.' 'What has he done?' is the divine
question which searches men and transpierces every false reputation. A
fop may sit in any chair of the world nor be distinguished for his hour
from Homer and Washington; but there need never be any doubt concerning
the respective ability of human beings. Pretension may sit still,
but cannot act. Pretension never feigned an act of real greatness.
Pretension never wrote an Iliad, nor drove back Xerxes, nor
christianized the world, nor abolished slavery.

As much virtue as there is, so much appears; as much goodness as there
is, so much reverence it commands. All the devils respect virtue. The
high, the generous, the self-devoted sect will always instruct and
command mankind. Never was a sincere word utterly lost. Never a
magnanimity fell to the ground, but there is some heart to greet and
accept it unexpectedly. A man passes for that he is worth. What he is
engraves itself on his face, on his form, on his fortunes, in letters
of light. Concealment avails him nothing, boasting nothing. There is
confession in the glances of our eyes, in our smiles, in salutations,
and the grasp of hands. His sin bedaubs him, mars all his good
impression. Men know not why they do not trust him, but they do not
trust him. His vice glasses his eye, cuts lines of mean expression in
his cheek, pinches the nose, sets the mark of the beast on the back of
the head, and writes O fool! fool! on the forehead of a king.

If you would not be known to do any thing, never do it. A man may play
the fool in the drifts of a desert, but every grain of sand shall seem
to see. He may be a solitary eater, but he cannot keep his foolish
counsel. A broken complexion, a swinish look, ungenerous acts and the
want of due knowledge,--all blab. Can a cook, a Chiffinch, an Iachimo
be mistaken for Zeno or Paul? Confucius exclaimed,--"How can a man be
concealed? How can a man be concealed?"

On the other hand, the hero fears not that if he withhold the avowal
of a just and brave act it will go unwitnessed and unloved. One knows
it,--himself,--and is pledged by it to sweetness of peace and to
nobleness of aim which will prove in the end a better proclamation of it
than the relating of the incident. Virt