en they tarry
for some time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in any other country."
The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or
shelter, to the stranger--so it be done for love, and not for
ostentation--do, as it were, put God under obligation to them, so
perfect are the compensations of the universe. In some way the time
they seem to lose is redeemed, and the pains they seem to take
remunerate themselves. These men fan the flame of human love, and
raise the standard of civil virtue among mankind. But hospitality must
be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave
soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its
table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its
own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks[337] and fair water
than belong to city feasts.

9. The temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish to do no
dishonor to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy,
not for its austerity. It seems not worth his while to be solemn, and
denounce with bitterness flesh-eating or wine-drinking, the use of
tobacco, or opium, or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man scarcely
knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision,
his living is natural and poetic. John Eliot,[338] the Indian Apostle,
drank water, and said of wine,--"It is a noble, generous liquor, and
we should be humbly thankful for it, but, as I remember, water was
made before it." Better still is the temperance of king David[339] who
poured out on the ground unto the Lord the water which three of his
warriors had brought him to drink, at the peril of their lives.

10. It is told of Brutus,[340] that when he fell on his sword, after
the battle of Philippi,[341] he quoted a line of Euripides,[342]--"O
virtue! I have followed thee through life, and I find thee at last but
a shade." I doubt not the hero is slandered by this report. The heroic
soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness. It does not ask to
dine nicely, and to sleep warm. The essence of greatness is the
perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not
need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.

11. But that which takes my fancy most, in the heroic class, is the
good humor and hilarity they exhibit. It is a height to which common
duty can very well attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. But
these rare souls set opinion, success, and life, a