find how difficult it is. Carelessness, false shame, a desire for
admiration, a vanity that leads you to disclaim any interest in that
which you cannot obtain,--these are all temptations that beset your
path, and ought to terrify you against adding the chains of habit to so
many other difficulties.

There is one more point of view in which I wish you to consider this
subject; that, namely, of "honesty being the best policy." There is no
falsehood that is not found out in the end, and so turned to the shame
of the person who is guilty of it. You may perpetually dread, even at
present, the eye of the discriminating observer; she can see through
you, even at the very moment of your committal of sin; she quickly
discovers that it is your habit to depreciate people or things, only
because you are not in your turn valued by them, or because you cannot
obtain them; she can see, in a few minutes' conversation, that it is
your habit to say that you are admired and loved, that your society is
eagerly sought for by such and such people, whether it be the case or
not. Quick observers discover in a first interview what others will not
fail to discover after a time. They will then cease to depend upon you
for information on any subject in which your own interest or your vanity
is concerned. They will turn up their eyes in wonder, from habit and
politeness, not from belief. They will always suspect some hidden motive
for your words, instead of the one you put forward; nay, your giving one
reason for your actions will, by itself alone, set them on the search to
discover a different one. All this, perhaps, will in many cases take
place without their accusing you, even in their secret thoughts, of
being a liar. They have only a vague consciousness that you are, it may
be involuntarily, quite incapable of giving correct information.

The habitual, the known truth-speaker, occupies a proud position. Alas!