But you know you will step over that boundary line of virtue and modesty, into the district where humbug and vanity begin, and there the moralizer catches you and makes an example of you.  For instance, in a certain novel in another place my friend Mr. Talbot Twysden is mentioned—­a man whom you and I know to be a wretched ordinaire, but who persists in treating himself as if he was the finest ’20 port.  In our Britain there are hundreds of men like him; for ever striving to swell beyond their natural size, to strain beyond their natural strength, to step beyond their natural stride.  Search, search within your own waistcoats, dear brethren—­you know in your hearts, which of your ordinaire qualities you would pass off, and fain consider as first-rate port.  And why not you yourself, Mr. Preacher? says the congregation.  Dearly beloved, neither in or out of this pulpit do I profess to be bigger, or cleverer, or wiser, or better than any of you.  A short while since, a certain Reviewer announced that I gave myself great pretensions as a philosopher.  I a philosopher!  I advance pretensions!  My dear Saturday friend.  And you?  Don’t you teach everything to everybody? and punish the naughty boys if they don’t learn as you bid them?  You teach politics to Lord John and Mr. Gladstone.  You teach poets how to write; painters, how to paint; gentlemen, manners; and opera-dancers, how to pirouette.  I was not a little amused of late by an instance of the modesty of our Saturday friend, who, more Athenian than the Athenians, and apropos of a Greek book by a Greek author, sat down and gravely showed the Greek gentleman how to write his own language.

No, I do not, as far as I know, try to be port at all; but offer in these presents, a sound genuine ordinaire, at 18s. per doz. let us say, grown on my own hillside, and offered de bon coeur to those who will sit down under my tonnelle, and have a half-hour’s drink and gossip.  It is none of your hot porto, my friend.  I know there is much better and stronger liquor elsewhere.  Some pronounce it sour:  some say it is thin; some that it has wofully lost its flavor.  This may or may not be true.  There are good and bad years; years that surprise everybody; years of which the produce is small and bad, or rich and plentiful.  But if my tap is not genuine it is naught, and no man should give himself the trouble to drink it.  I do not even say that I would be port if I could; knowing that port (by which I would imply much stronger, deeper, richer, and more durable liquor than my vineyard can furnish) is not relished by all palates, or suitable to all heads.  We will assume then, dear brother, that you and I are tolerably modest people; and, ourselves being thus out of the question, proceed to show how pretentious our neighbors are, and how very many of them would be port if they could.