d not to enrich myself with the goods of another.

I underwent a very long and searching self-examination to ascertain
why it was I had not appropriated that bag,--an offence which, legally
speaking, would only amount to a breach of trust. I said, "Is it that
you had no need of the money, Potts? Did you feel that your own means
were ample enough? Was it that your philosophy had made you regard gold
as mere dross, and then think that the load was a burden? Or, taking
higher ground, had you recalled the first teachings of your venerable
parent, that good man and careful apothecary, who had given you your
first perceptions of right and wrong?" I fear that I was obliged to say
No, in turn, to each of these queries. I would have been very glad to be
right, proud to have been a philosopher, overjoyed to feel myself swayed
by moral motives, but I could not palm the imposition on my conscience,
and had honestly to own that the real reason of my conduct was--I was in
love! There was the whole of it!

There was an old sultan once so impressed with an ill notion of the sex,
that whenever a tale of misfortune or disgrace reached him, his
only inquiry as to the source of the evil was, Who was she? Now, my
experiences of life have travelled in another direction, and whenever I
read of some noble piece of heroism or some daring act of self-devotion,
I don't ask whether he got the Bath or the Victoria Cross, if he were
made a governor here or a vice-governor there, but who was She that
prompted this glorious deed? I 'd like to know all about _her_: the
color of her eyes, her hair; was she slender or plump; was she fiery
or gentle; was it an old attachment or an acute attack coming after a
paroxysm at first sight?

If I were the great chief of some great public department where all my
subordinates were obliged to give heavy security for their honesty, I
would neither ask for bail bonds or sureties, but I'd say, "Have you got
a wife, or a sweetheart? Either will do. Let me look at her. If she be
worthy an honest man's love, I am satisfied; mount your high stool and
write away."

Oh, how I longed to stand aright in that dear girl's eyes, that she
should see me worthy of her! Had she yielded to all my wayward notions
and rambling opinions, giving way either in careless indolence or out of
inability to dispute them, she had never made the deep impression on
my heart. It was because she had bravely asserted her own independence,
never co