Dignity! That is the saving quality! No matter how mean the surroundings, how squalid the furniture of life, dignity is always possible, always desirable. Victor Hugo's old rag-picker, cataloguing the horrors she disinterred, with her plate, her pot, her basket, respected herself and her calling, and thought her disposition of scraps worthy of interested description. Only, our dignity must not be a mere mask; it must not be studied for itself; it must not be a robe sedulously arranged over a skeleton; but it must be the outer radiance of truth and hope and courage. For of all fates the most deplorable is, as the wise Greek said, to be opened and found empty. Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. London & Edinburgh End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays, by Arthur Christopher Benson