Charles Fox. Not paying a debt until long after it is due, when you know that no interest will be asked' for. Dr. Dix. Yes; great cruelty is often inflicted in this way upon poor people who are dependent on prompt payments. Isabelle Anthony. Being less careful of a hired horse or house than you would be of your own. Florence Hill. Putting the best fruit on the top of the barrel. Susan Perkins. Selling water for milk, sand for sugar, and slate for coal. Jane Simpson. Men do worse than that; if they did n't put poison in our food, we could, perhaps, tolerate their water, sand, and slate. Julia Taylor. Not paying your fare on the cars if the conductor forgets to collect it. Helen Mar. Wantonly injuring private or public property, as, for instance, whittling fences, marking on walls, books, etc. I heard a story once of a man who whittled the counter in a store. The proprietor came behind him and snipped off a piece from his coat. “What did you do that for?" asked the whittler in great indignation. "This piece of cloth will just pay for that chip of wood," replied the proprietor. Sally Jones. They were both thieves, were n't they? Dr. Dix. Yes, they were both thieves; but the petty vandal richly deserved his loss. Go on. Frank Williams. Not trying to find the owner of anything you have found. George Williams. Putting a few cents' worth of sarsaparilla and iodide of potassium into a bottle and selling it for a dollar. Henry Phillips. Gambling. Joseph Cracklin. I know that gambling is wrong; but I don't see how you can call it actual dishonesty. Henry Phillips. If a man takes another man's prop erty without giving him an equivalent, what else can it be? Joseph Cracklin. But he does that whenever he accepts a gift. Henry Phillips. Winnings are not gifts. Dr. Dix. They are not looked upon as such by either the loser or the winner. Until they are paid they are regarded as debts as truly as if they were so much borrowed money. Henry Phillips. They are considered even more sacred: they are called "debts of honor." Joseph Cracklin. But there is a sort of equivalent given. Dr. Dix. What is it? Joseph Cracklin. An equal chance to win the other man's money. Henry Phillips. An equal chance to rob the other man of his money, that is. That does not prevent it from being robbery, any more than the equal chance on both sides to take life prevents duelling from being murder. XXIX. HONOR. Dr. Dix. My good boy my hero sans peur et sans reproche is the "soul of honor." What does that mean? It means that he is honest, not because "honesty is the best policy," but because it never occurs to him to be dishonest. If dishonesty were the best policy, as some shrewd men seem to believe, if we may judge by their conduct, he would still be honest. It means that he is truthful, not because he is afraid of the penalty that might follow if he were detected in a lie, but because he loathes a lie with his whole soul: the very thought of it makes his lip curl with scorn. It means that he is generous, not because he hopes and expects to be rewarded for his generosity, but because it is as natural for him to be big-hearted as it is for an athlete to be broad-shouldered: he could n't be dishonorable or mean any more than a giant could be a dwarf; if he should try, he would n't know how to set about it. He will stand by a friend, not because he expects his friend to stand by him, but because that is the only thing to do active and suggestive as his mind is, it is not suggestive enough to think of leaving his friend in the lurch. It means that he is grateful for benefits received, not because it would not look well to be ungrateful, not because men would despise him if he were ungrateful, but because he can't help being grateful. : You have heard of antipathies. There are some persons who will grow faint at the sight of a spider, and others who will almost become wild at the sight of a snake. It is useless to convince them that the spider and the reptile are actually as harmless as butterflies, they are not harmless to them. The soul of honor has a very similar antipathy to all things that are mean and contemptible. The soul without honor has no such antipathy to it they may seem as harmless as butterflies; it might not even be able to recognize them as mean and contemptible except that it has learned that they are so regarded by others. The general sense of mankind is a very important guide to those who are below the average in honor and virtue: whatever they may be within their own hearts and souls, it enables them to preserve a certain respectability in their outward conduct. The fear of what others will think of them is the chief or only restraint upon their meanness and wickedness, unless it be the stronger, even more ignoble fear of what others will do to them. : But though they have learned that there is a generally recognized standard of honor and respectability above their own natural standard, still they cannot believe in its reality in their secret hearts they believe it is an artificial standard, raised from motives of general policy. In other words, they cannot help judging others by themselves. Living in a valley and breathing its noxious gases, they cannot see the heights above them where others dwell in a purer atmosphere. To them there are no really honest men. "Every man has his price, if you only bid high enough." Fabricius, who "could no more deviate from the path of honor than the sun could leave his course in the heavens," is to them a myth, an impossibility. Boys and girls, put no faith in the man who believes that there is no honor in his fellow-men: be sure he is judging others by himself. There are authors who describe only villains, — they little know that they are only showing to the world their own bad hearts. Dean Swift had a clever brain, but a villainous heart. Lucy Snow. Is not the general sense of mankind important to the honorable as well as to the dishonorable — That is not exactly what I meant to say. I meant, Ought not every one to regard the opinions of others? Dr. Dix. Most certainly, Miss Snow. But while the man of honor duly values the opinion of others, he values his own opinion of himself still more highly. Lucy Snow. What is the difference between that and vanity or egotism? Dr. Dix. The difference is, that vanity and egotism are most sensitive to the opinion of others, while honor is most sensitive to that of self. Vanity thirsts for admiration on account of personal beauty, dress, wit, fine horses or houses, graceful accomplishments, etc.; when the objects of the desired admiration are less frivolous, such as intellectual achievements, social, financial, military, or political power, vanity rises to ambition more or less laudable; when the object is still higher, virtuous, benevolent, honorable conduct, it becomes no longer vanity, but a most noble and praiseworthy aspiration. The man of honor may feel all these in due measure, but high above them all is his desire for the approval of his own conscience and self-respect. To the man absolutely devoid of honor his own opinion of himself is nothing: that of others is everything, either on account of the love of approbation, which the lowest possess in some degree, or for a worse reason. Frank Williams. For what worse reason? Dr. Dix. For the reason that a sheep's clothing sometimes serves a wolf better than his own. The moral furnishings of some persons are very much like the household furnishings of a family I once visited with my father on his professional rounds, when I was a very small lad, so small that the family did not think it necessary to keep me confined in the "show rooms where their other callers sat. As you will never know who this family were or where they lived, I do not feel وو |
