“I owe my success in business chiefly to you,” said a stationer to a
paper-maker, as they were settling a large account; “but let me ask how
a man of your caution came to give credit so freely to a beginner with
my slender means?” “Because,” replied the paper-maker, “at whatever hour
in the morning I passed to my business, I always observed you without
your coat at yours.” Upon this Mr. Walker, the police-magistrate,
observes: “I knew both parties. Different men will have different
degrees of success, and every man must expect to experience ebbs and
flows; but I fully believe that no one in this country, of whatever
condition, who is really attentive, and, what is of great importance,
who lets it appear that he is so, can fail in the long-run. Pretence is
ever bad; but there are many who obscure their good qualities by a
certain carelessness, or even an affected indifference, which deprives
them of the advantages they would otherwise infallibly reap, and then
they complain of the injustice of the world. The man who conceals or
disguises his merit might as well expect to be thought clean in his
person if he chose to go covered with filthy rags. The world will not,
and cannot in great measure, judge but by appearances; and worth must
stamp itself, if it hopes to pass current, even against baser metal:
Worth makes the man, want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunello.—_Pope._”
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