garden may have a few weeds in it, the cleanest corn
may have some chaff--but cavilers cavil at any thing or nothing, and
find fault for the sake of showing off their deep knowledge; sooner than
let their tongues have a holiday, they would complain that the grass is
not a nice shade of blue, and say that the sky would have looked neater
if it had been whitewashed.

GOOD-NATURE AND FIRMNESS.

Do not be all sugar, or the world will suck you down; but do not be all
vinegar, or the world will spit you out. There is a medium in all
things; only blockheads go to extremes. We need not be all rock or all
sand, all iron or all wax. We should neither fawn upon every body like
silly lap-dogs, nor fly at all persons like surly mastiffs. Blacks and
whites go together to make up a world, and hence, on the point of
temper, we have all sorts of people to deal with. Some are as easy as an
old shoe, but they are hardly ever worth more than the other one of the
pair; and others take fire as fast as tinder at the smallest offense,
and are as dangerous as gunpowder. To have a fellow going about the farm
as cross with every body as a bear with a sore head, with a temper as
sour as verjuice and as sharp as a razor, looking as surly as a
butcher's dog, is a great nuisance; and yet there may be some good
points about the man, so that he may be a man for all that; but poor,
soft Tommy, as green as grass and as ready to bend as a willow, is
nobody's money and every body's scorn. A man must have a backbone, or
how is he to hold his head up? But that backbone must bend, or he will
knock his brow against the beam.

There is a time to do as others wish, and a time to refuse. We may make
ourselves asses, and then every body will ride us; but, if we would be
respected, we must be our own masters, and not let others saddle us as
they think fit. If we try to please every body, we shall be like a toad
under a harrow, and never have peace; and, if we play lackey to all our
neighbors, whether good or bad, we shall be thanked by no one, for we
shall soon do as much harm as good. He that makes himself a sheep will
find that the wolves are not all dead. He who lies on the ground must
expect to be trodden on. He who makes himself a mouse, the cats will eat
him. If you let your neighbors put the calf on your shoulders, they will
soon clap on the cow. We are to please our neighbor for his good to
edification, but this is quite another matter.

PATIENCE