ranging his toilet, attending
on his own health, laying traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting
his heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or
a little praise, that the great soul cannot choose but laugh at such
earnest nonsense. "Indeed, these humble considerations make me out of
love with greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to take note how many
pairs of silk stockings thou hast, namely, these and those that were the
peach-colored ones; or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as one for
superfluity, and one other for use!"

Citizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider the
inconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside, reckon narrowly
the loss of time and the unusual display; the soul of a better quality
thrusts back the unseasonable economy into the vaults of life, and says,
I will obey the God, and the sacrifice and the fire he will provide.
Ibn Hankal, the Arabian geographer, describes a heroic extreme in the
hospitality of Sogd, in Bukharia. "When I was in Sogd I saw a great
building, like a palace, the gates of which were open and fixed back
to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, and was told that the
house had not been shut, night or day, for a hundred years. Strangers
may present themselves at any hour and in whatever number; the master
has amply provided for the reception of the men and their animals, and
is never happier than when they tarry for some time. Nothing of the kind
have I seen in any other country." The magnanimous know very well that
they who give time, or money, or shelter, to the stranger,--so it be
done for love and not for ostentation,--do, as it were, put God under
obligation to them, so perfect are the compensations of the universe. In
some way the time they seem to lose is redeemed and the pains they seem
to take remunerate themselves. These men fan the flame of human love and
raise the standard of civil virtue among mankind. But hospitality must
be for service and not for show, or it pulls down the host. The brave
soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its table
and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it hath, but its own
majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks and fair water than belong
to city feasts.

The temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish to do no dishonor
to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy, not for its
austerity. It seems not worth his while to be sol