kindness done to him, seemed incapable of gratitude.

He rejoiced when sordid greed was rewarded with poverty; and still
more if he might himself enrich a righteous man, since his wish was to
render uprightness more profitable than iniquity.

He made it a practice to associate with all kinds of people, but to be
intimate only with the best.

As he listened to the praise of this man, or the censure of another,
he felt that he learnt quite as much about the character of the
speakers themselves as of those whom they discussed.

To be cheated by a friend was scarcely censurable, but he could find
no comdemnation strong enough for him who was outwitted by a foe. Or
again, to dupe the incredulous might argue wit, but to take in the
unsuspecting was veritably a crime.

The praise of a critic who had courage to point out his defects
pleased him; and plainness of speech excited in him no hostility. It
was against the cunning rather of the secretive person that he guarded
himself, as against a hidden snare.

The calumniator he detested more than the robber or the thief, in
proportion as the loss of friends is greater than the loss of
money.[2]

[2] Mr. R. W. Taylor aptly quotes "Othello," III. iii. 157--

"Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;