s urgent necessities.

But, even here, the beggar knows that he exposes himself not only to
refusal, but to the harsh and opprobrious terms in which that refusal
may be conveyed. In this city there are laws against begging; and
the man that asks alms of me, is an offender against the state. In
country-towns it is usual to remark a notice upon entering, to say,
Whoever shall be found begging in this place, shall be set in the
stocks.

There are modes however in which I may accost a stranger, with small
apprehension that I shall be made to repent of it. I may enquire of him
my way to the place towards which my business or my pleasure invites me.
Ennius of old has observed, that lumen de lumine, to light my candle
at my neighbour's lamp, is one of the privileges that the practices of
civil society concede.

But it is not merely from forecast and prudence that we refrain from
interrupting the stranger in his way. We have all of us a certain degree
of kindness for a being of our own species. A multitude of men feel this
kindness for every thing that has animal life. We would not willingly
molest the stranger who has done us no injury. On the contrary we would
all of us to a certain extent assist him, under any unforeseen casualty
and tribulation. A part therefore of the innocence that characterises
our species is to be attributed to philanthropy.

Childhood is diffident. Children for the most part are averse to the
addressing themselves to strangers, unless in cases where, from the mere
want of anticipation and reflection, they proceed as if they were wholly
without the faculty of making calculations and deducing conclusions. The
child neither knows himself nor the stranger he meets in his path. He
has not measured either the one or the other. He does not know what the
stranger may be able, or may likely be prompted to do to him, nor what
are his own means of defence or escape. He takes refuge therefore in a
wary, sometimes an obstinate silence. It is for this reason that a boy
at school often appears duller and more inept, than would be the amount
of a fair proportion to what he is found to be when grown up to a man.

As we improve in judgment and strength, we know better ourselves and
others, and in a majority of instances take our due place in the ranks
of society. We acquire a modest and cautious firmness, yield what
belongs to another, and assert what is due to ourselves. To the last
however, we for the most part r