fects of my nature and education have, by a sort of
benevolent Providence, been so attenuated and reduced as to be of very
little moment. A certain apparent lack of frankness in my relations
with them is forgiven me by my friends, who attribute it to my
clerical education. I must admit that in the early part of my life I
often told untruths, not in my own interest, but out of good-nature
and indifference, upon the mistaken idea which always induces me to
take the view of the person with whom I may be conversing. My sister
depicted to me in very vivid colours the drawbacks involved in acting
like this, and I have given up doing so. I am not aware of having told
a single untruth since 1851, with the exception, of course, of the
harmless stories and polite fibs which all casuists permit, as also
the literary evasions which, in the interests of a higher truth, must
be used to make up a well-poised phrase, or to avoid a still greater
misfortune--that of stabbing an author. Thus, for instance, a poet
brings you some verses. You must say that they are admirable, for if
you said less it would be tantamount to describing them as worthless,
and to inflicting a grievous insult upon a man who intended to show
you a polite attention.

My friends may have well found it much more difficult to forgive me
another defect, which consists in being rather slow not to show them
affection but to render them assistance. One of the injunctions most
impressed upon us at the seminary was to avoid "special friendships."
Friendships of this kind were described as being a fraud upon the rest
of the community. This rule has always remained indelibly impressed
upon my mind. I have never given much encouragement to friendship; I
have done little for my friends, and they have done little for me. One
of the ideas which I have so often to cope with is that friendship, as
it is generally understood, is an injustice and a blunder, which only
allows you to distinguish the good qualities of a single person, and
blinds you to those of others who are perhaps more deserving of your
sympathy. I fancy to myself at times, like my ancient masters, that
friendship is a larceny committed at the expense of society at large,
and that, in a more elevated world, friendship would disappear. In
some cases, it has seemed to me that the special attachment which
unites two individuals is a slight upon good-fellowship generally; and
I am always tempted to hold aloof from them a