else. If one dimly suspects that one is a liar, a coward, or a
snob, and gratefully believes that one has not been placed in a
position which inevitably reveals these characteristics in their
full nakedness, one may be fairly certain that other people know
that one is so tainted.

The discouraging point is that one is not similarly conscious of
one's virtues. I take for granted that I have some virtues, because
I see that most of the people whom I meet have some sprinkling of
them, but I declare that I am quite unable to say what they are. A
fault is patent and unmistakable. The old temptation comes upon
one, and one yields as usual; but with one's virtues, if they ever
manifest themselves, one's own feeling is that one might have done
better. Moreover, if one tries deliberately to take stock of one's
good points, they seem to be only natural and instinctive ways of
behaving; to which no credit can possibly attach, because by
temperament one is incapable of acting otherwise.

Another melancholy fact which I believe to be true is this--that
the only good work one does is work which one finds easy and likes.
I have one or two patiently acquired virtues which are not natural
to me, such as a certain methodical way of dealing with business;
but I never find myself credited with it by others, because it is
done, I suppose, painfully and with effort, and therefore
unimpressively.

I look round, and the same phenomenon meets me everywhere. I do not
know any instance among my friends where I can trace any radical
change of character. "Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et
in saecula saeculorum."