He sees our virtues are not what they pretend they are; and, on the strength of that, he denies us the possession of virtue altogether.

He has learnt the first lesson, that no man is wholly good; but he has not even suspected that there is another equally true, to wit, that no man is wholly bad.

Like the inmate of a coloured star, he has eyes for one colour alone.

He has a keen scent after evil, but his nostrils are plugged against all good, as people plugged their nostrils before going about the streets of the plague-struck city.
Why does he do this?
It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledge of good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten and grow fat in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house.

This was my first thought; but my second was not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise, wise in his generation, like the unjust steward.