At length we have an Eccentric American who was practical, successful,
useful, and happy; who was a conservative radical, a laughing
philanthropist, a non-resisting hero, a lovely fighting Quaker, the
popular champion of an unpopular cause, and—most singular of all!—a
Christian in fact and act, though counted a heretic by evangelicals, and
excommunicated by his own sect. It is just because his life was gentle,
and the elements so mixed in him, that Isaac T. Hopper takes rank as one
of the grandest and rarest of Eccentrics. For, as the reader may know, we
have declared from the outset of this series that the true man in a false
world is necessarily eccentric; that uniformity is always at the expense
of principle. “Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one
man picked out often thousand.” And isn’t that odd?
The key to this symmetrical eccentricity of friend Hopper is found
in the counterbalancing qualities of his character. A powerful will
was offset by a conscience equally imperative. A native bravery was
balanced by softness of heart, so that he was at once incapable of fear
and of cruelty; combativeness was mollified by simplicity of manner
and frankness of speech. A genius for finesse was by an all-pervading
benevolence and love of justice enlisted in the service of the slave
and the convict; a lively sense of humor sweetened the austerities of
a formal religion, softened the asperities of a life of warfare and
informed great natural pride with geniality. With less love of abstract
justice, he might have been a great lawyer; with less conscience and
benevolence he might have been a great soldier; with less earnestness and
dignity he might have been a great comedian; with less philanthropy he
might have been a great business man; with less executive will he might
have been a great preacher. Balanced as these qualities were, he was a
rare Eccentric—being lawyer, soldier, comedian, business man and minister
combined.
“The boy was father of the man,” in his case. Born in 1771 to poor
parents, farmers in New Jersey, he early made manifest extraordinary
qualities.
_Bravery._—A cosset lamb which he had reared was seized by a foraging
party of British soldiers from Philadelphia and cast bound into their
wagon. The lad of ten years ran and climbed into the vehicle, cut the
cords with a rusty jack-knife, and then stoutly resisted the captors,
until the officer in command, attracted by the outcry, rode up and
ordered the lamb restored, out of admiration for the wee patriot’s pluck
and devotion. He would fight any man on behalf of all of his pet animals,
of which he always had a menagerie, caught and tamed by aid of a certain
brute free-masonry which he possessed.
_Justice._—Isaac and his brother trapped partridges. One day the former
found one in his brother’s trap and none in his own; first removing the
bird to his own trap he carried it home, saying he took it out of his
trap—the little lawyer! But before morning conscience asserted itself, he
confessed the deception and restored the game—the little justice!
_Humor._—His love of mischief kept him in continual disgrace, and the
house and school in continual turmoil—albeit his love of justice usually
led to reparation of damages; if he got others into scrapes he was quite
willing to shoulder the consequences; he could fill a schoolmate’s dinner
pail with sand, and then dry all tears by giving up his own lunch. One
night he went to see old Polly milk. Fun soon got the better of the
boy, he got a twig, the cow got a sensation, and Polly got a surprise.
There was a lacteal cataclysm and a _tableau vivant_; mingled strains
of wild juvenile laughter and wilder feminine screams, accompanied by a
rude barbaric clangor of cow-bell and tin pail. The boy went slippered
and supperless to bed, but he lay there hungry and happy, waking the
wild echoes of his raftered chamber with shouts of laughter over the
persisting vision of how the maid turned pale and flew, and the cow
turned pail and ran, with altitudinous tail and head. The artless sports
of our childhood are often our most enduring joys, and Father Hopper
never forgot this _chef d’œuvre_ of his childhood, though he was only
five years old when he thus essayed the part of _Puck_; for he afterward
secured the cow’s bell, and for fifty years used it as a dinner bell,
refusing to substitute a more melodious, but less memorial monitor. He
immensely enjoyed reviving at once the household and his own thoughts
with it, and often with a sedate Quaker chuckle told the story when he
tolled the bell.
Not the least curious antithesis in this mixed character was his
open-heartedness and cunning; his simplicity of speech and shrewdness
of management. From the age of nine years he marketed the farm produce
in Philadelphia, and there was known as “The Little Governor,” for
his precocious dignity. When asked the price of a pair of fowls, he
replied, “My father told me to sell them for fifty cents if I could, if
not, to take forty.” He got the fifty before he would part with them,
however—just as, years on, he would frankly give up his plans to an
antagonist and still beat him.
Isaac’s sympathy with the enslaved was aroused as early as the age of
nine by listening to the harrowing narrative of a native African captive;
and he was only sixteen years old when he assisted to liberate a slave
who had acquired the right of freedom by residence in Philadelphia.
The lad was at that time apprentice to a tailor, his uncle, in the
city. Slavery still existed in all the states of the union, though
the movement for its gradual abolishment had been begun in several of
them. Pennsylvania had taken a long step in this direction by enacting
the gradual emancipation of her own citizens’ slaves, and decreeing
that any slave from another state, coming by his owner’s consent into
Pennsylvania and there abiding continuously for six months, should be
free; and that any slave landing there from a foreign country should
immediately become free by that fact. It was in enforcing this law, as
also in preventing the kidnaping of free negroes from Pennsylvania, that
Hopper soon distinguished himself. Philadelphia became a modern city
of refuge, and Friend Hopper a recognized deliverer of fugitives and
freedmen, from either Southern or Northern states. It is thus a fact, not
often remarked as to the relation of human slavery to our government,
that the first blows at the institution were the work of state rights;
and that the remedy provided for this trenching of one state upon the
institutions of another, in the fugitive slave law of Fillmore’s time,
was an encroachment of federal power over the previously reserved rights
of the states. The National Anti-Slavery Society was formed many years
later; the national conscience was not yet quickened on this question;
but Philadelphia had even then a local anti-slavery society, and with
it Friend Hopper identified himself. He made himself master of all
the laws, findings, decisions and proceedings relating to slavery and
manumission, as well as, incidentally, an adept in the proverbially
intricate Pennsylvania laws of contracts, property, evidence, and
general processes, so that he soon became the best authority thereon
in Philadelphia. In fact, he was the embodiment of that enigma which,
it is alleged, could “puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer.” His standing in
court became so well recognized that no lawyer was anxious to take a
case against him. “You had better consult Mr. Hopper,” said a judge to a
veteran counselor who asked his opinion on a slave case before him, “he
knows more law on these cases than you and I both together.” “I thought
I knew something of law, but it seems I do not,” said a magistrate
petulantly, upon being tripped up in a slave case by Friend Hopper, a
layman. The latter did not scruple to use in behalf of freedom all the
technicalities and delays of law; and his craft in these devices was
not the less effective because his openness of manner made him seem an
unsophisticated and rather simple fellow. His dignity, simplicity and
directness of speech in quaint Quaker phraseology, compelled the respect
of courts and won the confidence of juries. If needs were he would
procrastinate and continue a case in court three or four years, until the
master would tire out and sell the manumission of the slave for a nominal
sum. In case of attempted kidnaping he took the aggressive against the
abductors, and forced them to pay roundly for the benefit of the negroes;
generally those who came to carry off others were glad enough to escape
themselves. Hopper and other friends advanced large sums of money for
the purchase of manumissions, which were invariably repaid, in part or
entire, from the subsequent earnings of the freedmen.
Unbroken success at length brought Friend Hopper a factitious reputation,
insomuch that it was difficult to enlist Philadelphia officers of law
heartily against him; if a magistrate reluctantly granted a process, the
constables more timidly executed it. “Did you say I dared not grant a
warrant to search your house?” demanded the Mayor upon one occasion.
“Indeed I did say so, and I now repeat it,” rejoined the imperturbable
Quaker. “I am a man of established reputation; I am not a suspicious
character.” (This was what the world calls “bluffing.” The slave was at
that moment locked in his house.)
“Is not this man’s slave in your house?” asked the Mayor.
“Thou hast no right to ask that question, friend Mayor. A man is not
bound to inform against himself. Thou well knowest the penalty for
secreting a slave.”
Getting no evidence sufficient for a search-warrant, his house was
watched day and night for a week. Friend Hopper, with perfect urbanity,
tendered the planter the use of his warm parlor as a guard-house, for
the nights were cold. This was surlily refused. In the morning he had a
good hot breakfast prepared for the shivering men outside, but they dared
not accept it. They had learned that Hopper was most dangerous when most
agreeable, and feared a trick from the gift-bearing Greek. A ruse _was_
preparing for them. At night a free colored man was employed to run out
of the house. The guard sprang out of their hiding and seized him, but
immediately released him on perceiving their mistake. Hopper arrested
them and put them under peace bonds. This made them cautious. The next
night the same negro made another rush and was not stopped. The third
night it was the slave who did the rushing; he ran past the irresolute
guard and escaped to other hiding, until Hopper could negotiate his
manumission with the discouraged master.
On one occasion he instituted a fictitious suit for debt against a
freedman in order to gain time to secure evidence of his freedom. On
another, he offered to become bound _to the United States_ for the
return of a slave to court, and the simple magistrate so entered the
recognizance. When the day came Hopper was there but the slave was not,
and magistrate, owner and lawyer for the first time discovered that the
bond was worthless, as the United States could not be a party to it.
Again he entered into an undertaking to produce a slave or pay $500 for
his freedom—after his master had once before agreed to free him for $150.
He produced the slave, and professed to have failed in raising the $500,
and demanded the return of his bond. The slave, previously instructed, as
soon as the bond touched Hopper’s hand, bolted and escaped by a back door
and an alley. The master was so furious at this trick that he assaulted
several free colored people, for which he was arrested and threatened
with such heavy penalties that he was glad to remit the $150 first
promised him for a bill of manumission, and to pay some damages to the
other negroes besides.
“There is no use trying to capture a runaway slave in Philadelphia,”
exclaimed an irate and discouraged master. “I believe the devil himself
could not catch them when they once get here.”
“That is very likely,” answered Friend Hopper with a twinkling eye; “but
I think he would have less difficulty in catching the masters, being so
much more familiar with them.”
In dealing with so desperate a class of men as usually made a business
of man-chasing, incensed as they were by his successful tactics, Hopper
was often in extreme peril, and he always showed a coolness and dexterity
equal to the most daring of them. His adventures and escapes outdo
romance. After making all allowance for supposed consciousness of the
weakness of a bad cause on the part of his antagonists, and the moral
effect of his name; after picturing his insensibility to fear, his calm,
good-natured, and dignified bearing, and above all, that remarkable
will-power, under which officers in the rightful discharge of their
duties had been known to surrender to him—maugre all this, it seems
wonderful that in the hundreds of cases he had to do with, he neither
used force nor (save once) suffered by force. It seems as if there could
have been found some one man in the United States cool enough to face
down or reckless enough to strike down this man of peace—but there was
not. It must have been the power of passiveness, the irresistibleness
of non-resistance. “The weak alone are strong.” This is Scriptural
eccentricity. Even in this world of force he who, when smitten on one
cheek, can turn the other, may conquer—though this is a definition of
success by cheek that is not usually accepted.
The solitary occasion upon which Friend Hopper suffered violence was when
a posse of kidnapers guarding a negro threw him bodily from a second
story window. Though severely hurt, as it afterward turned out, he gained
a reëntrance, and while the guard were yet congratulating themselves on
being well rid of him, he walked into the room, cut the captive’s bonds
and secured his escape. He seemed to bear a charmed life, and when years
later he went to Europe, he found the reputation of a wizard had preceded
him.
These efforts lasted during his forty years’ residence in Philadelphia,
and continued after his removal to New York (1829). Not less than one
thousand persons owed their escape from servitude to him, some of them
becoming useful members of society. One was a missionary to Sierra Leone,
one a bishop, several were preachers and teachers. So this one tailor
made nine men multiplied an hundred fold.
He made other than black men. His labors in behalf of prison reform and
for the raising of fallen men and abandoned women, and the relief of the
unfortunate, if less exciting, were not less apt to draw our admiration
and sympathy. The story of “The Umbrella Girl,” which has traveled the
rounds of the press for forty years, is a good example of his tact in
conducting a delicate case to a happy end; one hardly knows which most
to admire, the goodness or the shrewdness of the philanthropist. His
biography, by Lydia Maria Child, abounds in narratives of these acts; it
would make an admirable Sunday-school library volume.
His success in reclaiming the lost and despairing was largely due to two
beautiful traits, viz.: his confidence in human nature and his patient
long-suffering. Seventy and seven times could he forgive and lift again
a brother, because he believed there was an imperishable spark of the
divine there. He was accustomed to say that there was not one among the
prisoners in the Philadelphia penitentiary with whom he would be afraid
to trust himself alone by night with large sums of money in his pocket.
His biographer tells the following in point:
One of the prisoners, who had been convicted of manslaughter,
became furious, in consequence of being threatened with a
whipping. When they attempted to bring him out of his dungeon
to receive punishment, he seized a knife and a club, rushed
back again, and swore he would kill the first person who came
near him. Being a very strong man, and in a state of madness,
no one dared to approach him. They tried to starve him into
submission, but finding he was not to be subdued that way, they
sent for Friend Hopper, as they were accustomed to do in all such
difficult emergencies. He went boldly into the cell, looked the
desperado calmly in the face, and said, “It is foolish for thee
to contend with the authorities, thou wilt be compelled to yield
at last. I will inquire into thy case. If thou hast been unjustly
dealt by, I promise thee it shall be remedied.” This kind and
sensible remonstrance had the desired effect. From that time
forward he had great influence over the ferocious fellow, who was
always willing to be guided by his advice, and finally became one
of the most reasonable and orderly inmates of the prison.
Charity for convicts was truly eccentric in that day. The general
sentiment regarding prisoners and prison management was far different
from what it now is. It was with great difficulty that consent could be
got to even hold religious services in prison; the authorities declaring
that the prisoners would rise, kill the minister, escape in a body, and
burn and kill indiscriminately. At the first service (1787) they had
a loaded cannon mounted on the rostrum, by the side of the messenger
of Christ, a man standing by with lighted match during the prayer and
preaching, the prisoners being carefully arranged in a solid column
in front of the cannon. Thus was accompanied the first preaching to
prisoners in this country. Deplorable as was their situation behind the
bars, their punishment was hardly less after their release. “Who passes
here leaves hope behind” might have been written over the prison door
outside and inside. (Was the North then more humane in its regard of
convicts than the South was in its regard of slaves? In which respect has
public sentiment more improved, and in what states most?)
Among the insane, too, he was a missionary. He had the clairvoyant sense
to understand, and the mysterious power to control them, such as made
him when a boy a tamer of wild animals. In fact, among all the depraved
and unfortunate elements of society his face was a benediction, his
tones pulsated hope, his hand lifted to better lives. I fancy that his
cheery, hearty, homely, sympathetic presence came from the feminine side
of his nature, while the strong uplift and commanding presence came from
the masculine side; and that he seemed both mother and father to the
unfortunate; to be a representative of both home and heaven. The grandest
natures that walk the earth are these congenital marriages, combinations
of the two sexes in one person. The weakest, those which are only
masculine or only feminine.
“The bravest are the tenderest,
The loving are the daring.”
Friend Hopper’s appearance was much in his favor in this work. His erect
form, jet black, curly hair, plain, rich Quaker costume, and dignified
port made him conspicuous in a crowd. But his face was the study. Its
lines mingled of strength and tenderness gave it that representation
of benign efficiency which sculptors and limners try to give to their
personifications of divine attributes. Humboldt’s was one of those
faces—and I remember once seeing some children, constructing a “play”
world, paste a likeness of Humboldt to the ceiling. When asked what that
was for, they explained with perfect sincerity and reverence, “That is
God.” Happy the childhood that hath received such beautiful conceptions
of the All Father! It was often remarked that Hopper’s face bore a strong
resemblance to that of Napoleon Bonaparte. Joseph Bonaparte, when he
resided at Bordentown, frequently commented on the remarkable likeness,
and declared that Isaac T. Hopper could easily excite a revolution in
Paris.
In 1829 Friend Hopper had reduced himself to insolvency by the
expenditure of money and time on behalf of others, and he closed his
tailoring business at Philadelphia, removed to New York, and accepted
the agency for the publications of the Anti-Slavery Society. Here his
activity in behalf of slaves got him worse enmity than in Philadelphia it
did. New York’s commercial interests made her a Northern stronghold of
pro-slavery sentiment. The press was violent against the Abolitionists,
the courts were unfriendly, and “Judge Lynch” more than once summarily
adjudicated their cases. One of these mobs directed their attack toward
Friend Hopper’s store, after having sacked several places. He was
apprised of the danger but refused to budge, to call in help, to close
his doors, or to put up his shutters. He received the howling rioters,
standing impassively on the steps. Not a word was uttered on either
side; the mob stopped its course there, because the sight of its master
compelled it to pause, and presently it passed on to other spoliation.
It was quite fit that in the same city twenty-five years later, the mob
which hung negroes to lamp posts and burned colored orphan asylums should
single out the house of Isaac T. Hopper’s daughter for destruction, while
she was away nursing soldiers in the hospitals!
The commercial spirit of slavery invaded every interest of society
and every church. Even the Quakers became infected, insomuch that
Friend Hopper and others were tried and expelled the society for their
connection with anti-slavery publications. Thus the persecuted sect of
old turned persecutors. This was the severest penalty this Eccentric
was called on to pay for his adherence to his work; for he loved the
faith and associations of his fathers. It was he who remained orthodox
and regular, however, and the society which became eccentric to true
Quakerism; they narrowed and declined. “His character grew larger and his
views more liberal, after the bonds which bound him to a sect were cut
asunder,” says his Quaker biographer; “it is astonishing how troublesome
a living soul proves to be when they try to shut it up within the narrow
limits of a drowsy sect.” He lived to be solicited to return to the
society, and to decline a connection with a church which he thought had
abandoned its own faith and practice.
In New York Friend Hopper also continued his work on behalf of
prisoners and offenders. Public interest at length awoke; the Prison
Association was formed, and organized efforts began in that direction.
Father Hopper was made its agent, and he became a very active one,
for though seventy-four years old, his movements were as elastic, his
spirit as young, and his hair as unstreaked of white as ever. In the
legal relations of this work, Friend Hopper was frequently before the
legislature and the governor of the state, and his appeals uniformly
secured ameliorations of law or pardon of convicts. “Friend Hopper, I
will pardon any convict whom you say you conscientiously believe I ought
to pardon,” said Governor Young. Hopper always addressed his excellency
as “Esteemed friend, John Young,” and the Governor in reply adopted the
Quaker “thou” and “thee.” When he was seventy-eight years old the Prison
Association struck a bronze medallion likeness of Hopper, from the fine
portrait by the artist Page, representing him raising a prisoner from the
ground, and bearing the striking text:
“To seek and save that which was lost.”
No one this side of the White Throne knows how many he was instrumental
in rescuing from worse than death. One whom he had lifted from prison,
from the insane asylum, from the gutter many times, and at last made a
safe, good, and happy woman, thus wrote him:
“Father Hopper, you first saw me in prison, and visited me. You
followed me to the asylum. You did not forsake me. You have
changed a bed of straw to a bed of down. May heaven bless and
reward you for it. No tongue can express the gratitude I feel.
Many are the hearts you have made glad. Suppose all you have
dragged out of one place and another were to stand before you at
once! I think you would have more than you could shake hands with
in a month; and I know you would shake hands with them all.”
Isaac T. Hopper’s democratic spirit was one of the most conspicuous of
his minor traits. It was founded in his natural lack of reverence and
intense love of justice, and fostered by his religious training and
political experience. He came honestly by it. His mother revealed it in
her parting injunction to him upon his leaving home: “My son, you are
now going forth to make your own way in the world. Always remember that
you are as good as any other person; but remember also that you are no
better.” Fowler, the phrenologist, made a happy guess when he said of
Hopper:
“He has very little reverence, and stands in no awe of the powers
that be. He is emphatically republican in feeling and character.
He has very little credulity; he understands just when and where
to take men and things.”
How remarkable was the benevolence of a man thus keen-sighted for human
defects, and immovable by human excellence, that he became so great a
philanthropist; but for this counterbalance of sympathy and justice he
would have been a cynic—with his keen wit, a satirist. His democratic
manners showed more conspicuously in the old country than here. The
following incidents illustrate his irreverence and coolness:
When in Bristol, he asked permission to look at the interior of
the cathedral. He had been walking about some little time when
a rough looking man said to him in a very surly tone, “Take off
your hat, sir!”
He replied very courteously, “I have asked permission to enter
here to gratify my curiosity as a stranger. I hope there is no
offense.”
“Take off your hat!” rejoined the rude man. “If you don’t, I’ll
take it off for you.”
Friend Hopper leaned on his cane, looked him full in the face,
and answered very coolly, “If thou dost, I hope thou wilt send
it to my lodgings; for I shall have need of it this afternoon. I
lodge at No. 35, Lower Crescent, Clifton.” The place designated
was about a mile from the cathedral. The man stared at him as
if puzzled whether he were talking to an insane person or not.
When the imperturbable Quaker had seen all he cared to see, he
deliberately walked away.
At Westminster Abbey he paid the customary fee of two shillings
sixpence for admission. The doorkeeper followed him, saying, “You
must uncover yourself, sir.”
“Uncover myself,” exclaimed the Friend, with an affectation of
ignorant simplicity. “What dost thou mean? Must I take off my
coat?”
“Your coat!” responded the man, smiling. “No, indeed, I mean your
hat.”
“And what should I take off my hat for?” he inquired.
“Because you are in a church, sir,” answered the doorkeeper.
“I see no church here,” rejoined the Quaker. “Perhaps thou
meanest the house where the church assembles. I suppose thou
art aware that it is the _people_, not the _building_, that
constitutes a church, sir?”
The idea seemed new to the man, but he merely repeated, “You must
take off your hat, sir.”
But the Friend inquired, “What for? On account of these images?
Thou knowest Scripture commands us not to worship graven images.”
The man persisted in saying that no person could be permitted
to pass through the church without uncovering his head. “Well,
friend,” rejoined Isaac, “I have some conscientious scruples on
that subject; so give me back my money and I will go out.”
The reverential habits of the doorkeeper were not quite strong
enough to compel him to that sacrifice; and he walked away
without saying anything more on the subject.
When Friend Hopper visited the House of Lords, he asked the
sergeant-at-arms if he might sit on the throne. He replied, “No,
sir. No one but his majesty sits there.”
“Wherein does his majesty differ from other men?” inquired he.
“If his head were cut off, wouldn’t he die?”
“Certainly he would,” replied the officer.
“So would an American,” rejoined Friend Hopper. As he spoke he
stepped up to the gilded railing that surrounded the throne,
and tried to open the gate. The officer told him it was locked.
“Well, won’t the same key that locked it unlock it?” inquired he.
“Is this the key hanging here?”
Being informed that it was, he took it down and unlocked the
gate. He removed the satin covering from the throne, carefully
dusting the railing with his handkerchief before he hung the
satin over it, and then seated himself in the royal chair.
“Well,” said he, “do I look anything like his majesty?”
The man seemed embarrassed, but smiled as he answered, “Why, sir,
you certainly fill the throne very respectably.”
There were several noblemen in the room, who seemed to be
extremely amused by these unusual proceedings.
Father Hopper lived verily to a “green old age.” On his eightieth
birthday he thus wrote to his youngest daughter, Mary:
“My eye is not dim, nor my natural force abated. My head is well covered
with hair, which still retains its usual glossy, dark color, with but few
gray hairs sprinkled about. My life has been prolonged beyond most, and
has been truly a chequered scene. Mercy and kindness have followed me
thus far, and I have faith that they will continue with me to the end.”
A few months later, going to visit a discharged convict for whom the
association had built a shop far up in the city, Friend Hopper took a
fatal cold. It was a long and painful sickness, but he restrained his
tendency to groan by singing, and said: “There is no cloud. There is
nothing in the way. Nothing troubles me.” His heart was with his past
work. His son-in-law wrote: “Reminiscences are continually falling from
his lips, like leaves in autumn from an old forest tree; not, indeed
green, but rich in the colors that are of the tree, and characteristic. I
have never seen so beautiful a close to a good man’s life.” On the last
day he said: “I seem to hear voices singing, ‘We have come to take thee
home.’” And again he spoke low to his daughter, “Maria, is there anything
peculiar in this room?” “No; why do you ask that question?” “Because,”
said the dying patriarch, “you all look so beautiful; and the covering
on the bed hath such glorious colors as I never saw. But perhaps I had
better not have said anything about it.”
His last act was characteristic. Calling for his box of private papers
he took out one and asked to have it destroyed, lest it should do some
injury. He confided to his eldest daughter as a precious keepsake a
little yellow paper, fastened by a rusty pin; it was the first love
letter of his first love, her mother, written when she and he were
fourteen years old, children in school. Love of justice and love of love
in his last breath!
* * * * *
Truth is the source of every good to gods and men. He who expects
to be blest and fortunate in this world should be a partaker of it
from the earliest moment of his life, that he may live as long as
possible a person of truth; for such a man is trustworthy. But that
man is untrustworthy who loveth a lie in his heart; and if it be told
involuntary, and in mere wantonness, he is a fool. In neither case
can they be envied; for every knave and shallow dunce is without real
friends. As time passes on to morose old age, he becomes known, and has
prepared for himself at the end of his life a dreary solitude; so that,
whether his associates and children be alive or not, his life becomes
nearly equally a state of isolation.—_Plato._