a voice which made them both remember and hope? What is vulgar, but to
refuse the claim on acute and conclusive reasons? What is gentle, but
to allow it, and give their heart and yours lone holiday from the
national caution? Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.
The king of Schiraz[450] could not afford to be so bountiful as the
poor Osman[451] who dwelt at his gate. Osman had a humanity so broad
and deep, that although his speech was so bold and free with the
Koran[452] as to disgust all the dervishes, yet was there never a poor
outcast, eccentric, or insane man, some fool who had cut off his
beard, or who had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness in
his brain, but fled at once to him,--that great heart lay there so
sunny and hospitable in the center of the country,--that it seemed as
if the instinct of all sufferers drew them to his side. And the
madness which he harbored, he did not share. Is not this to be rich?
this only to be rightly rich?

23. But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill,
and talk of that which I do not well understand. It is easy to see,
that what is called by distinction society and fashion, has good laws
as well as bad, has much that is necessary, and much that is absurd.
Too good for banning, and too bad for blessing, it reminds us of a
tradition of the pagan mythology, in any attempt to settle its
character. "I overheard Jove,[453] one day," said Silenus,[454]
"talking of destroying the earth; he said, it had failed; they were
all rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as the days
succeeded each other. Minerva said, she hoped not; they were only
ridiculous little creatures, with this odd circumstance, that they had
a blur, or indeterminate aspect, seen far or seen near; if you called
them bad, they would appear so; if you called them good, they would
appear so; and there was no one person or action among them, which