A soul to whom one dares to speak the truth?”
“Ah, Haydn,” ask’d I, “must we speak all truth?”
“Why not?” he said, “is ill less ill when hid?—
Is not the penitent a sinner frank,
The hypocrite a sinner not so frank?”—
“But yet,” protested I, “the truth may harm.”
“How so?” he ask’d. “If one show naked sin,—
Who knows?—it then may shame men from the sin.
And could the naked good accomplish more?
Must not we Christians here confess our faults?