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rather effeminate immorality of the cloth. This man I mention would not steal, nor get drunk, nor commit adultery, nor stoop to fisticuffs at midnight in the street. But he was not ashamed to backbite, to pile his disappointments on another's disappointments, to hug his miseries, that he might the more easily peddle them when customers came. He exaggerated; he was not strictly truthful. The weaker vices were all his. He was well within the law in his crimes, and still, I thought, more guilty than more than one red-blooded rascal I have known. It is curious how despicable a man can be, and yet in the letter break none of the commandments. I don't know that this is good ethical doctrine for such as you, but, like other old grannies, I suppose I have a weakness for the frailties of those I love. "There never was a rogue,

who had not a salvo to himself for being so," writes Richardson in "Clarissa." I make no doubt that if you are ever put to it, you will not need me to invent excuses for you. But for God's sake and I use the phrase reverently and advisedly — don't whine if you ever do get a licking! That ought to be the difference between a real man and a make-believe man, that the one does not, and the other does, cry when he is hurt. All the professions which make a demand upon a man for much self-expression, such as that of the actor, the public orator, the preacher, even the artist who expresses himself with clay or paint, seem to inculcate an unmanly lack of modesty. Such people are dearer to women than to men. The habit of giving way to one's feelings in preaching, or acting, or public speaking generally, - permissible enough

on occasions when the duties of the profession demand it, breeds a temperament

that permits itself the luxury of public confession when such self-betrayal is eminently undignified. One gets into the way of asking an unfair share of other people's attention and sympathy. As I grow older, and especially now that I am at the mercy of those who come to see me, I note, with wonder, how my brother men are wrapped closely in the matter of their own interests, and most of them would fain have you cover yourself with a corner of their garment while they are with you. It is a difficult thing, I know, to draw the line between that necessary selfishness which underlies the law of the survival of the fittest, which no man can break and live, and the unbecoming selfishness which is always rude, and often cruel. It were a work of

supererogation to try to draw that line in every word and action of one's life, and yet I cannot help thinking that it is he who comes nearest to it who is most the gentleman. My clerical friend, despite his office, was clearly not a gentleman. And now,

my son in God," as the ancient ecclesiastical phrase is, and what a beautiful phrase it is, one may, I think, carry flippancy and triviality to the point where one becomes effeminate, though in a diametrically opposite way from my clerical friend. Though self-confession is bad, the cloak of a false gaiety and a cynical good humour is, it seems to me, but a poor habit of mind, and a mean habit of body. It is just as much a sign of weakness, the one as the other. Both mark the man who is dominated by the world. "The world is in the saddle," the world that you and I ought

to ride. If I were as fond of epigrams as you and Rochefoucauld, I might say that one must ride the world even to be a man at all, and that one must ride it gracefully to be a gentleman.

Alas, that I should be forever preaching to you, but I have never known a congregation needing it more than you, my parish of one. One of my old friends, when I read him by the basketful, and not by piecemeal, as now I must, George Herbert by name, wrote that "All preaching's folly," and I suppose at bottom he was right. The only competent criticism of any man is to be better than he is. And that, I take it, is what makes so much preaching folly indeed. I can hear you scoff at the worldly advice of a broken-vertebraed celibate, whose tour du monde is from bed to chair and back again. But those who are de

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