CHAPTER XXVI. REPUTATION. 
CHARACTER is what a man really is; reputation is what he is thought to be. As J.G.Holland says, "Character lives in man, reputation outside of him." The two may not coincide, in fact seldom do; Some one has said that in everyone there are four men -- (1) the man the people generally take him to be, (2) the man most intimate friends think he is, (3) the man he thinks he is, and (4) the man whom God knows him to be. As God alone knows a man perfectly, it is not often that his reputation exactly coincides with his character. "A man's reputation is like a shadow, which sometimes follows, sometimes precedes him, and which is occasionally shorter, occasionally longer than he is."
	The reasons for it are on the surface. We have not the means of knowing people. When a wealthy man dies, it is usually found that his estate is smaller than was supposed, though sometimes larger. In a city of Italy, a generation ago, an old man used to go about the streets, the very picture of poverty. The boys made sport of him and called him "Old Hunks." When he died, it was supposed that he would have to be buried in a pauper's grave and at the expense of the city, but to the surprise of all, he had accumulated considerable wealth and had bequeathed it to the city to found a hospital for the poor. An old shoe maker used to have a miserable shanty in Wash Street in St. Louis, and, winter and summer, he worked away in seeming poverty, but when he died; the people learned, with surprise, that he was almost wealthy. 
	Many people are incapable of estimating character, and with them a man will never be what he is, but will always appear better or worse. 
	A great many people have not the power of fully showing themselves, because they lack the power of expression, or shrink in modesty from any exhibition of themselves, while others have the way of appearing more than they really are. They carry all their [199]