lf.
And let this hint of one public manifestation of Vealiness suffice to
suggest to each of us scores of similar cases. But though we feel, in
our secret souls, what Calves we have been, and though it is well for us
that we should feel it deeply, and thus learn humility and caution, we
do not like to be reminded of it by anybody else. Some people have a
wonderful memory for the Vealy sayings and doings of their friends.
They may be very bad hands at remembering anything else; but they never
forget the silly speeches and actions on which one would like to shut
down the leaf. You may find people a great part of whose conversation
consists of repeating and exaggerating their neighbors' Veal; and though
that Veal may be immature enough and silly enough, it will go hard but
your friend Mr. Snarling will represent it as a good deal worse than the
fact. You will find men, who while at college were students of large
ambition, but slender abilities, revenging themselves in this fashion
upon the clever men who beat them. It is easy, very easy, to remember
foolish things that were said and done even by the senior wrangler or
the man who took a double first-class; and candid folk will think
that such foolish things were not fair samples of the men,--and will
remember, too, that the men have grown out of these, have grown mature
and wise, and for many a year past would not have said or done such
things. But if you were to judge from the conversation of Mr. Limejuice,
(who wrote many prize essays, but, through the malice and stupidity of
the judges, never got any prizes,) you would conclude that every word
uttered by his successful rivals was one that stamped them as essential
fools, and calves which would never grow into oxen. I do not think it
is a pleasing or magnanimous feature in any man's character, that he is
ever eager to rake up these early follies. I would not be ready to throw
in the teeth of a pretty butterfly that it was an ugly caterpillar once,
unless I understood that the butterfly liked to remember the fact. I
would not suggest to this fair sheet of paper on which I am writing,
that not long ago it was dusty rags and afterwards dirty pulp. You
cannot be an ox without previously having been a calf; you acquire taste
and sense gradually, and in acquiring them you pass through stages
in which you have very little of either. It is a poor burden for the
memory, to collect and shovel into it the silly sayings and doings in