But in spite of all this the difference even between one man and another is incalculably great, and many a one would be horrified to see another as he really is.  Oh, for some Asmodeus of morality, to make not only roofs and walls transparent to his favourites, but also to lift the veil of dissimulation, fraud, hypocrisy, pretence, falsehood and deception, which is spread over all things! to show how little true honesty there is in the world, and how often, even where it is least to be expected, behind all the exterior outwork of virtue, secretly and in the innermost recesses, unrighteousness sits at the helm!  It is just on this account that so many men of the better kind have four-footed friends:  for, to be sure, how is a man to get relief from the endless dissimulation, falsity and malice of mankind, if there were no dogs into whose honest faces he can look without distrust?

For what is our civilised world but a big masquerade? where you meet knights, priests, soldiers, men of learning, barristers, clergymen, philosophers, and I don’t know what all!  But they are not what they pretend to be; they are only masks, and, as a rule, behind the masks you will find moneymakers.  One man, I suppose, puts on the mask of law, which he has borrowed for the purpose from a barrister, only in order to be able to give another man a sound drubbing; a second has chosen the mask of patriotism and the public welfare with a similar intent; a third takes religion or purity of doctrine.  For all sorts of purposes men have often put on the mask of philosophy, and even of philanthropy, and I know not what besides.  Women have a smaller choice.  As a rule they avail themselves of the mask of morality, modesty, domesticity, and humility.  Then there are general masks, without any particular character attaching to them like dominoes.  They may be met with everywhere; and of this sort is the strict rectitude, the courtesy, the sincere sympathy, the smiling friendship, that people profess.  The whole of these masks as a rule are merely, as I have said, a disguise for some industry, commerce, or speculation.  It is merchants alone who in this respect constitute any honest class.  They are the only people who give themselves out to be what they are; and therefore they go about without any mask at all, and consequently take a humble rank.

It is very necessary that a man should be apprised early in life that it is a masquerade in which he finds himself.  For otherwise there are many things which he will fail to understand and put up with, nay, at which he will be completely puzzled, and that man longest of all whose heart is made of better clay—­

  Et meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Juvenal, Sat. 14, 34]