These things strike us with a force, which
reminds us of the morals of the Oriental or early Greek masters, and
of no modern book. Truly in these things there is great reward. It
is not by sitting still at a grand distance, and calling the human
race _larvae_, that men are to be helped, nor by helping the depraved
after their own foolish fashion, but by doing unweariedly the
particular work we were born to do. Let no man think himself
absolved because he does a generous action and befriends the poor,
but let him see whether he so holds his property that a benefit goes
from it to all. A man's diet should be what is simplest and readiest
to be had, because it is so private a good. His house should be
better, because that is for the use of hundreds, perhaps of
thousands, and is the property of the traveler. But his speech is a
perpetual and public instrument; let that always side with the race,
and yield neither a lie nor a sneer. His manners, -- let them be
hospitable and civilizing, so that no Phidias or Raphael shall have
taught anything better in canvass or stone; and his acts should be
representative of the human race, as one who makes them rich in his
having and poor in his want.
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