trifle,
and she ought to be above trifles." She cannot be above them at a
moment's warning: but if she had never been inspired with a violent
desire to go to a masquerade, the disappointment would really appear
trifling. We may calculate the probability of any person's
mortification, by observing the vehemence of their hopes; thus we are
led to observe, that the imagination influences the temper. Upon this
subject we shall speak more fully when we treat of Imagination and
Judgment.

To measure the degree of indulgence which may be safe for any given
pupils, we must attend to the effect produced by pleasure upon their
imagination and temper. If a small diminution of their usual
enjoyments disturbs them, they have been rendered not too happy, but
too susceptible. Happy people, who have resources in their own power,
do not feel every slight variation in external circumstances. We may
safely allow children to be as happy as they possibly can be without
sacrificing the future to the present. Such prosperity will not
enervate their minds.

We make this assertion with some confidence, because experience has in
many instances confirmed our opinion. Amongst a large family of
children, who have never been tormented with artificial trials of
temper, and who have been made as happy as it was in the power of
their parents to make them, there is not one ill tempered child. We
have examples every day before us of different ages from three years
old to fifteen.

Before parents adopt either Epicurean or Stoical doctrines in the
education of the temper, it may be prudent to calculate the
probabilities of the good and evil, which their pupils are likely to
meet with in life. The Sybarite, whose night's rest was disturbed by a
doubled rose leaf, deserves to be pitied almost as much as the young
man who, when he was benighted in the snow, was reproached by his
severe father for having collected a heap of snow to make himself a
pillow. Unless we could for ever ensure the bed of roses to our
pupils, we should do very imprudently to make it early necessary to
their repose: unless the pillow of snow is likely to be their lot, we
need not inure them to it from their infancy.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] V. Chapter on Sympathy and Sensibility.

[40] By Mr. Townsend, in his Travels into Spain.

[41] V. Chapter on Toys.

[42] V. Chapter on Attention.

[43] Lord Kames, p. 109.

[44] V. Chapter on Rewards and Punishments.

CHAPTER VII.