Page:The Praises of Amida, 1907.djvu/80

 of a dog set him trembling, the shadow of a man gave him the shudders. The thing at last got so much on his nerves that, with a spirit broken by fear, he concluded that prison was the right place for him, and quietly returned to give himself up to the authorities. This is a case in point. The man had been putting a fictitious value on himself, and had considered that he was a good man unjustly treated. And so he ran away. Presently his conscience showed him what was his real value, and then he went back to prison, and found peace. 7. There is another form of deceit which is the exact opposite of the "fictitious value" to which I have just alluded. It is when a man tries to make himself out worse than he really is. For instance, a man knows that he is really a good man, but he shows himself off to others in a bad light: he knows that he is upright, but puts on the airs of a cunning knave: he is conscious of possessing a loveable character, but does his best to disguise it. A lie of this sort is not condemned by the world: on