Dr. Edward Everett Hale said that once he dreamed of playing
ball with a companion, and of throwing the ball through a large
glass window, and that the owner of the house came out and
asked him if he threw the ball, and he said, “No.” Then the man
pounced upon his companion, saying, “Then it must have been
you,” and dragged him into the house and gave him a tremendous
whipping. Dr. Hale said he experienced a feeling of meanness
and degradation that was inexpressible; he felt himself to be
the most cowardly wretch on the face of the earth, and had not
a single word to say in his own defense. He stood ashamed of
himself before his own conscience. He said the impression was
so vivid that he never got over the remembrance, and through
life was given a loathing and abhorrence of all forms of
deceit.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”
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