Note 4 — THE HERMIT AND THE FIG-TREE.

“Even so, my son, but the difficulty is to discern which are good and which evil. This is not so easy as you seem to think; for instance, you see two men both apparently pious and charitable, while the one who appears most so, very possibly only gives his money to the poor that he may stand well with the world, that the poor may look up to him, and say, ‘There goes one who is like a king among us;’ the other, whose liberality you noticed less, drops his hardly-spared coin noiselessly into the capillo4, and sallies forth perhaps in dead of night to carry his alms to those who would blush to receive such assistance by day. One man appears to you calm and placid because he is of a phlegmatic nature, and has no effort to make in order to appear equable and ever patient; while another, whom you judge to be hasty and passionate, may be all the while struggling to conquer a hot and violent temperament which requires the courage of a hero to keep it within bounds.”