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It is hard enough to do good works, and we know we should not boast if we do. What can be said about someone who says, “I did a couple of nice things last week.  Helped a friend clean up his garage. Put an extra ten in the Salvation Army bucket. Helped out at the free dinner at the church. Yup, had a good week. I guess I just like to do nice things for people.” Or maybe, at the office, a little more subtly. “I want to encourage as many as can to help out at the mission dinner line this week. I’ve done that a few times, and it really makes you feel good."

It is so easy to boast. Quite natural, actually. Nevertheless, woven into our various codes of acceptable social conduct is a general understanding that one ought not boast or brag, even off handedly, about one’s achievements or good works. No one likes a braggart. If you do good works, good for you, but keep quiet about it.  

Yet how pleasant it is to do a good work, intending quite rightly to keep quiet about it, and have it “found out by accident.” Pleasant, yes, but admirable? Worthy? Not quite. And while the event may be unavoidable, we ought to forget it as soon as possible. We don’t need to be reminded of our good works however accidental the reminder might be. This may be the ”greatest pleasure” for Lamb, and, regrettably, it is a pleasure, but it is on the moral minus side.

There is no way out of it. As a species, we are proud and vain and any effort to be otherwise faces great resistance. That’s why the world is the way it is.

There is, however, a respectable way a way to get your name out there—if you can afford it. Give a gift with your name on it.  A park bench or the whole park. A set of books for the library or maybe the library building. Furnish a room in a hospital or somewhere. A painting or an art collection for a school. A big contribution to some fund drive. Your picture and a brass name plate on the wall. An added benefit is the tax deduction. That sort of thing is quite acceptable socially, but it is still self-advertisement. You don’t often see, “Given by anonymous.”