Excerpt from The Academy, Vol. 2
A fondness for the applause attending an act of virtue, is no proof of an attachment to the practice of the virtue itself; and an action, however seemingly virtuous, prompted by desires so low and selfish, deserves not the need of praise, as it is in reality nothing better than a substituted trick for the goodness it imitates. Let then the youth who thinks he would do a generous or in any other respect a worthy action, first ask himself, if he anticipates spectators to the performance of it, and whether or not he would do the same thing without the presence of a single beholder, or without the secret hope of its future development as his mighty achievement, at which others are to admire and wonder.
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