ent our little
passions the moment they are excited: and so much of novelty have we
to perceive, that we have little leisure to reflect. By and by, fear
teaches us to restrain our feelings: when displeased, we seek to revenge
the displeasure, and are punished; we find the excess of our joy,
our sorrow, our anger, alike considered criminal, and chidden into
restraint. From harshness we become acquainted with deceit: the promise
made is not fulfilled, the threat not executed, the fear falsely
excited, and the hope wilfully disappointed; we are surrounded by
systematized delusion, and we imbibe the contagion."

"From being forced into concealing thoughts which we do conceive, we
begin to affect those which we do not: so early do we learn the two main
tasks of life, To Suppress and To Feign, that our memory will not carry
us beyond that period of artifice to a state of nature when the
twin principles of veracity and belief were so strong as to lead the
philosophers of a modern school into the error of terming them innate."
[Reid: On the Human Mind.]

"It was with a mind restless and confused, feelings which were
alternately chilled and counterfeited (the necessary results of my first
tuition), that I was driven to mix with others of my age. They did not
like me, nor do I blame them. 'Les manieres que l'on neglige comme de
petites choses, sont souvent ce qui fait que les hommes decident de vous
en bien ou en mal. ["Those manners which one neglects as trifling are
often the cause of the opinion, good or bad, formed of you by men."]
Manner is acquired so imperceptibly that we have given its origin to
Nature, as we do the origin of all else for which our ignorance can
find no other source. Mine was unprepossessing: I was disliked, and I
returned the feeling; I sought not, and I was shunned. Then I thought
that all were unjust to me, and I grew bitter and sullen and morose: I
cased myself in the stubbornness of pride; I pored over the books which
spoke of the worthlessness of man; and I indulged the discontent of
myself by brooding over the frailties of my kind."

"My passions were strong: they told me to suppress them. The precept was
old, and seemed wise: I attempted to enforce it. I had already begun, in
earlier infancy, the lesson: I had now only to renew it. Fortunately I
was diverted from this task, or my mind in conquering its passions would
have conquered its powers. I learned in after lessons that the passions
are no