emper on such occasions would oblige you to
break through the chains of early and confirmed habits From infancy
those habits have been forming, and they impel you almost unconsciously
to subdue even the very tones of your voice, while strangers are
present. Have you not sometimes in the middle of an irritable
observation caught yourself changing and softening the harsh
uncontrolled tones of your voice, or the roughness of your manner, when
you have discovered the unexpected presence of a stranger in the family
circle? You have still enough of self-respect to feel deep shame when
such things have happened; and the very moment when you are suffering
from these feelings of shame is that in which you ought to form, and
begin to execute, resolutions of future amendment. While under the
influence of regretful excitement, you will have the more strength to
break through the chains of your old habits, and to begin to form new
ones. If the same courtesy, which until now you have only observed
towards strangers, were habitually exercised towards the members of your
domestic circle, it would, in time, become as difficult to break through
the forms of politeness by indulging ill-temper towards them, as towards
strangers or mere acquaintance.

This is a point I wish to urge on you, even more strongly with regard to
servants. There is great meanness in any display of ill-temper towards
those who will probably lose their place and their character, if they
are tempted by your provocation (and without your restraints of
good-breeding and good education) to the same display of ill-temper that
you yourself are guilty of. On the other hand, there is no better
evidence of dignity, self-respect, and refined generosity of
disposition, than a scrupulous politeness in requiring and requiting
those services for which the low-minded imagine that their money is a
sufficient payment. You will not alone receive as a recompense the love
and the grateful respect of those who serve you, but you will also be
forming habits which will offer a powerful resistance to the temptations
of ill-humour.

You will not surely object to any of the precautions or the practices
recommended above, that they are too trifling or too troublesome; you
have suffered so much from your besetting sin, that I can suppose you
willing to try every possible means of cure.

You should, however, to strengthen your desire of resistance and of
victory, look much further than the u