to be the best
tactics, for it invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient
footing and makes their business a friendship. Trust men and they will
be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves
great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules
of trade.

So, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not
consist in evasion or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk
in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw
himself up to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst
apprehension, and his stoutness will commonly make his fears
groundless. The Latin proverb says,[685] "in battles the eye is first
overcome." The eye is daunted and greatly exaggerates the perils of
the hour. Entire self-possession may make a battle very little more
dangerous to life than a match at foils or at football. Examples are
cited by soldiers of men who have seen the cannon pointed and the fire
given to it, and who have stepped aside from the path of the ball. The
terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlor and the cabin.
The drover, the sailor, buffets it all day, and his health renews
itself at as vigorous a pulse under the sleet as under the sun of
June.

In the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors, fear comes
readily to heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party; but
it is a bad counsellor. Every man is actually weak and apparently
strong. To himself he seems weak; to others formidable. You are afraid
of Grim; but Grim also is afraid of you. You are solicitous of the
good will of the meanest person, uneasy at his ill will. But the
sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood, if you rip
up _his_ claims, is as thin and timid as any; and the peace of society
is often kept, because, as children say, one is afraid and the other
dares not. Far off, men swell, bully and threaten: bring them hand to
hand, and they are a feeble folk.

It is a proverb that "courtesy costs nothing"; but calculation might
come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind, but
kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an
eye-water. If you meet a sectary or a hostile partisan, never
recognize the dividing lines, but meet on what common ground
remains,--if only that the sun shines and the rain rains for
both,--the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it, the
boundary mountains on which the