The true democrat and the true aristocrat meet and are one
in feeling themselves parts of one synthesis under one purpose and one
scheme. Both realize that self-concealment is the last evil, both make
frankness and veracity the basis of their intercourse. The general
rightness of living for you and others and for others and you is to
understand them to the best of your ability and to make them all, to the
utmost limits of your capacity of expression and their understanding and
sympathy, participators in your act and thought.
3.23. ON DEBTS OF HONOUR.
My ethical disposition is all against punctilio and I set no greater
value on unblemished honour than I do on purity. I never yet met a man
who talked proudly of his honour who did not end by cheating or trying
to cheat me, nor a code of honour that did not impress me as a
conspiracy against the common welfare and purpose in life. There is
honour among thieves, and I think it might well end there as an
obligation in conduct. The soldier who risks a life he owes to his army
in a duel upon some silly matter of personal pride is no better to me
than the clerk who gambles with the money in his master's till.
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