whom you live. Consider whether your own
vanity is not too requiring. See that others have not the same complaint
to make of your uncongeniality, that you are, perhaps, prone to make of
theirs. If you are, indeed, superior, reckon it as your constant duty,
to try and sympathize with those beneath you; to mix with their pursuits,
as far as you can, and thus, insensibly, to elevate them. Perhaps there
is no mind that will not yield some return for your labour: it seems the
dullest, bleakest, rock, not earth enough to feed a nettle; yet up grows,
with culture, the majestic pine.

A want of sympathy leads to the greatest ignorance in the intellect as
well as in the heart.

* * * * *

Remember that your dependents have seldom a full power of replying to
you; and let the recollection of that make you especially considerate in
your dealings with them.

* * * * *

When you find a lack of truth in those about you, consider whether it may
not arise from the furiousness of your own temper which scares truth away
from you: and reflect how fearful a part the angry man may have in the
sin of those falsehoods which immoderate fear of him gives rise to.
Such, I am afraid, is the tyrannous nature of the human heart that we not
only show, but really feel, more anger at offence given us by those under
our power, than at any other cause whatever.

* * * * *

It is a mistake to suppose that we necessarily become indifferent to the
faults and foibles of those with whom we live: on the contrary, we
sometimes grow more and more alive to them: they seem, as it were, to
create a corresponding soreness in ourselves: and, knowing that they
exist in the character, we are apt to fancy that we perceive them even on
occasions when they are not in the least brought into play.

* * * * *

Do not be fond of the display of authority, or think that there is
anything grand in being obeyed with abject fear. One certainly meets
with persons who are vain of their ill-temper, and of seeing how it keeps
the people about them in order; a species of vanity which they might
share with any wild animal at large.

* * * * *

In reasoning with your dependants, do not allow yourself to make broad
assertions and careless conclusions, merely because you are addressing
inferiors. "The Courts of R