“Laudari metuam, neque enim mihi cornea fibra est
          Sed recti finemque extremumque esse recuso
          Euge tuum, et belle.”

["I should fear to be praised, for my heart is not made of horn;
but I deny that ‘excellent—­admirably done,’ are the terms and
final aim of virtue.”—­Persius, i. 47.]

I care not so much what I am in the opinions of others, as what I am in my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing.  Strangers see nothing but events and outward appearances; everybody can set a good face on the matter, when they have trembling and terror within:  they do not see my heart, they see but my countenance.  One is right in decrying the hypocrisy that is in war; for what is more easy to an old soldier than to shift in a time of danger, and to counterfeit the brave when he has no more heart than a chicken?  There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a man’s own person, that we have deceived the world a thousand times before we come to be engaged in a real danger:  and even then, finding ourselves in an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can make shift for that time to conceal our apprehensions by setting a good face on the business, though the heart beats within; and whoever had the use of the Platonic ring, which renders those invisible that wear it, if turned inward towards the palm of the hand, a great many would very often hide themselves when they ought most to appear, and would repent being placed in so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold.

              “Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret
               Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem?”

["False honour pleases, and calumny affrights, the guilty
and the sick.”—­Horace, Ep., i. 16, 89.]

Thus we see how all the judgments that are founded upon external appearances, are marvellously uncertain and doubtful; and that there is no so certain testimony as every one is to himself.  In these, how many soldiers’ boys are companions of our glory? he who stands firm in an open trench, what does he in that more than fifty poor pioneers who open to him the way and cover it with their own bodies for fivepence a day pay, do before him?

              “Non quicquid turbida Roma
               Elevet, accedas; examenque improbum in illa
               Castiges trutina:  nec to quaesiveris extra.”

["Do not, if turbulent Rome disparage anything, accede; nor correct
a false balance by that scale; nor seek anything beyond thyself.” 
—­Persius, Sat., i. 5.]