s us from making many
mistakes, and deters us from undertaking many things that we could only
blunder through did we attempt.

The very slight knowledge that the bustle of civilised society permits
us to gain of ourselves, causes us sometimes to commit grievous errors,
that may render us ridiculous to the reasoning bystander. We may pride
and plume ourselves on merits and qualities that we do not really
possess, but that only exist in idea, caused by the flattering of our
_friends_, or some chance of fortune. We then have a way of reposing,
with a self-satisfied and complacent air, on imaginary laurels that we
never have culled, and, did we but really know ourselves, might be
perfectly certain we never should.

An Englishman has such a just appreciation of what is true and genuine,
that I am sure he would be delighted at having his perfections thus
correctly made known to him. Even supposing he has for tens of years
previously hugged himself with too favourable an idea of them, there may
still be a sufficient time left for him to cram this real knowledge of
himself. Even if he get but a smattering, still it will prepare him in
a measure, and therefore make the shock less at that great trial at
which we must all, sooner or later, have our merits weighed, and in
which good fortune and riches will be considered as only additional
trusts for which we shall have to account satisfactorily.

So frequently have some of my most certain axioms turned out myths,
that. I have long since come to the conclusion that I _know_ absolutely
nothing at all.

I have been put down so completely by naked Kaffirs and dirty Hottentots
on the subject of South-African spooring, etc., of which I might
otherwise easily have fancied I knew something, from having lived the
gipsy-like life of a savage for upwards of two years, and during that
time having been occupied night and day in the pursuit of wild animals,
and gathering information from the natives--that I frequently now listen
attentively and patiently to criticisms on the sporting proceedings of
such men as Sir Cornwallis Harris and Gordon Cumming, oracularly
delivered by gentlemen whose experiences have been gathered from
watching the deer in Greenwich Park, or from knocking over a
cock-pheasant in the well-preserved covers of their private manors. For
I always remembered that these people _might_ know more on the subject
than the sporting giants whom they are attempting to vilify.