—Crabbe.
816
INNOCENCE AND GUILT.
A painter, desiring to paint a picture of Innocence, found a beautiful boy playing at the side of a stream, who became his model. He painted him kneeling, with his hands clasped in prayer. The picture was prized as a very beautiful one. Years passed away, and the artist became an old man. He had often thought of painting a counterpart, the picture of guilt, as a companion to the other; and at last he executed it. He went to a neighboring prison, and there selected the most degraded and repulsive man he could find. His body and eye were wasted; vice was visible in his very face. But what was the artist's surprise when, on questioning the man as to his history, he found that it was he who, as a lovely boy, had kneeled for him as the model of Innocence! Evil habits had gradually changed him, not only in heart and mind, but in face and form.
817
All habits gather by unseen degrees.
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
—Dryden: Ovid.
818
Old habits are hard to break; new habits are hard to make.