to be successfully exhibited and perpetuated, with especial reference to
that annoyance which we have last considered. Instead, then, of dwelling
on the deviations from truth of which I have spoken, even when they are
to the injury of a friend, try to banish the subject from your mind and
memory; or, if you are able to think of it in the very way you please,
try to consider how much the original formation of the speaker's mind,
careless habits, and want of any disciplining education, may each and
all contribute to lessen the guilt of the person who has annoyed you. No
one knows better than yourself that tho original nature of the mind, as
well as its implanted habits, modifies every fact presented to its
notice. Still further, the point of view from which the fact or the
character has been seen may have been entirely different from yours.
These other persons may absolutely have _seen_ the thing spoken of in a
position so completely unlike your mental vision of it, that they are as
incapable of understanding your view as you may be of understanding
theirs. If sincere in your wish for improvement, you had better prove
the truth of the above assertion by the following process. Take into
your consideration any given action, not of a decidedly honourable
nature--one which, perhaps, to most people would appear of an
indifferent nature,--but to your lofty and refined notions deserving of
some degree of reprehension. You have a sufficiently metaphysical head
to be able to abstract yourself entirely from your own view of the case,
and then you can contemplate it with a total freedom from prejudice.
Such a contemplation can only be attempted when no feeling is
concerned,--feeling giving life to every peculiarity of moral sentiment,
as the heat draws out those characters which would otherwise have passed
unknown and unnoticed. I would then have you examine carefully into all
the considerations which might qualify and alter, even your own view of
the case. Dwell long and carefully upon this part of the process. It is
astonishing (incredible indeed until it is tried) how much our opinions