A false modesty would be ostentatious, don’t you think? It would seek to turn away emphatically from public distinctions and offices while privately lobbying to get them. And then allow itself to be dragged into them, protesting volubly about its unworthiness. I’m sure you’ve seen that cast of mind. But true modesty would accept that there is a place that one could fill, that one’s talents are not illusions, that it would be wrong to turn away from a task if one could do it well.
