conquer selfishness for the advantage of your neighbour. I must now,
however, remind you that one of the penalties incurred by past
indulgence in selfishness is this, that those who love you will not
continue to make those requests which you have been in the habit of
refusing, or, if you ever complied with them, of reminding the obliged
person, from time to time, how much serious inconvenience your
compliance has subjected you to. This, I fear, may have been your habit;
for selfish people exaggerate so much every "little" (by "the good man")
"nameless, unremembered act," that they never consider them gratefully
enough impressed on the heart of the receiver without frequent reminders
from themselves. If such has been the case, you must not expect the
frank, confiding request, the entire trust in your willingness to make
any not unreasonable sacrifice, with which the unselfish are gratified
and rewarded, and for which perhaps you often envy them, though you
would not take the trouble to deserve the same confidence yourself. Even
should you now begin the attempt, and begin it in all earnestness, it
will take some time to establish your new character. _En attendant_, you
must be on the watch for opportunities of obliging others, for they will
not be freely offered to you; you must now exercise your own
observation to find out what they would once have frankly told
you,--whether you are tiring people physically or distressing them
morally, or putting them to practical inconvenience. I do not make the
extravagant supposition that all those with whom you associate have
attained to Christian perfection; the proud and the resentful, as well
as the delicate-minded, will suffer much rather than repeat appeals to
your unselfishness which have often before been disregarded. They may
exercise the Christian duty of forgiveness in other ways, but this is
the most difficult of all. Few can attain to it, and you must not hope
it.