In his later years, the outlines of a man’s character ordinarily come out much more clearly than in his earlier. Real piety reveals itself in the patient bearing of the manifold burdens of age, fictitious piety in impatience and in a religion that becomes more and more formal. Avarice, envy, covetousness, anger, the love of honor and praise, and even, at times, the desire of secret, sensual pleasure, come with elementary, unmistakable force to light as the ruling passions of life; and the man pronounces his own judgment in the sight of his fellows. Rarely does any one, like Augustus, carry a rôle through to the end, and even this great actor was not successful. On the other hand, no one can read Cromwell’s last prayer and think him a hypocrite, unless he is one himself. And finally, sorrows play their part in revealing human nature. In any great sorrow the thoughts of men are disclosed. Envy comes to light to rejoice; generosity, to help; and indifference, to pass by on the other side. Whoever has had no thorough experience of this in person, does not know men. In the first part of life, when experience is still small, the greatest danger in one’s attitude to men is that of considering them of too much importance; in the second, that of becoming too indifferent to them. There is yet another and quite different source of the knowledge of human nature, but a source not to be desired for any one not already acquainted with it; I mean the power possessed by the nervously disordered. In such cases there is a very clear physical intuition as to the kind of nature there is in other people, of whom the one may have as quieting and refreshing an influence upon the sick man as clear, cool water, while the other only excites and frets. Such is the knowledge of men the Bible ascribes to those “possessed of evil spirits.” But these are diseased conditions which ought not to be, and which should not be needlessly meddled with. * * * * * Experience has established some of the following principles in the art of reading men: As with courtesy, so it is with a man’s probity; if it is genuine, it shows itself in his conduct in the small things. Probity in small matters springs from a moral foundation, while probity on the large scale is often only habit or prudence and gives no clew as to a man’s real character. Vanity and the lust for honors are always a bad symptom, for both rest at bottom upon a self-condemnation which tries to supply the missing inner contentment by outward show or the approving judgment of others. Thoroughgoing pessimists are always vain. By their pessimism they give us to understand more or less clearly that they themselves would really be an exception to this base human rabble if they could count on understanding their nature.