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[cagedinflesh]

lockets, compasses or action! or whatever else really

fun roulette, which personality will it be, you just can't know
unless you do know who you want, then say so

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[depicted]

Of course. I'm doing what I can.

Perhaps there's a difference worth marking, Henry. Have you ever wondered? Between what you think to do and what you really do. And if it isn't worth making a difference between a good thing done from kindness and one from vanity.

[cagedinflesh]

...I think you may be right, only, what do you mean, exactly?

[depicted]

I tried to be good a long time ago. I was, oh, 29? Something like that. I'd gone into the countryside, wooed another pretty girl, could have had her if I wished it—but I decided not to. I would leave her as flowerlike as I had found her.

[A little bitterness in his voice? Perhaps.]

I told the tale to perhaps my most constant friend. Another Henry, as it happens. And he said, "I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you a thrill of real pleasure."

[He becomes quiet.] Vanity, curiosity, hypocrisy. The core thought of my good deed. The portrait said as much.

Is that so terrible? If we only do what is good out of our moral weaknesses? I don't know if the hypocrisy makes it worse than what corruption we succumb to or if at least the effect of goodness has a worthiness to it, if not the cause.