Violet and Nettle

“Laden boughs ha7i low. The nettle mounieth above its fellow weeds, but the violet lieth shrouded under its leaves, and is only fotmd out by its own sce?tt.” Walking one day by a stream we were conscious of a delicious perfume, and only then did we perceive the little blue eyes which were looking up to us so meekly from the ground on which we stood. Virtue is always modest, and modesty is itself a virtue. He who is discovered by his real excellence, and not by his egotistical advertisement of his own perfections, is a man worth knowing: the other is a mere nettle who is sure to be forgotten, unless indeed his blustering pride should sting some tender spirit, and secure a wretched kind of remembrance.

0 that I may ever be more gracious than I seem to be. Never may it be any concern of mine to be observed of men, and yet let me so live that I need not fear to be read and known of all.