books used to warn children, and which was manifested by sitting in
a carriage surveying a beggar with a curling lip--a course of
action which was invariably followed by the breaking of a Bank, or
by some mysterious financial operation involving an entire loss of
fortune and respectability.

Nowadays the parable of the Pharisee and the publican is reversed.
The Pharisee tells his friends that he is in reality far worse than
the publican, while the publican thanks God that he is not a
Pharisee. It is only, after all, a different kind of affectation,
and perhaps even more dangerous, because it passes under the
disguise of a virtue. We are all miserable sinners, of course; but
it is no encouragement to goodness if we try to reduce ourselves
all to the same level of conscious corruption. The only advantage
would be if, by our humility, we avoided censoriousness. Let us
frankly admit that our virtues are inherited, and that any one who
had had our chances would have done as well or better than
ourselves; neither ought we to be afraid of expressing our
admiration of virtue, and, if necessary, our abhorrence of vice, so
long as that abhorrence is genuine. The cure for the present state
of things is a greater naturalness. Perhaps it would end in a
certain increase of priggishness; but I honestly confess that
nowadays our horror of priggishness, and even of seriousness, has
grown out of all proportion; the command not to be a prig has
almost taken its place in the Decalogue. After all, priggishness is
often little more than a failure in tact, a breach of good manners;
it is priggish to be superior, and it is vulgar to let a
consciousness of superiority escape you. But it is not priggish to
be virtuous, or to have a high artistic standard, or to care more
for masterpieces of literature than for second-rate books, any more