should constantly bear in mind the golden maxim, ef doing to others as you would have them do to you, if your situations were reversed. From your own species your consideration should extend even to the horses in your carriage, and to every sensitive creature whose comfort depends on your influence. Horses ought not to be worked beyond their strength, and you ought never to keep them waiting in the cold and rain for the sake of the trifles which often detain you till unseasonable hours at evening parties. These useful and noble creatures, and even your dog, and your birds, if you are the keeper of any of these unfortunate prisoners for life, ought to be made sensible that they have in you a kind-hearted and considerate protectress. It is in the treatment of your dependents of every description that your real character will be and ought to be estimated. On this head I may allude to your alms and your attentions to age and misfortune. Above all things avoid ostentation, never talk of your charities, steal into the habitations of poverty by the back door, and leave it to others to talk of you and proclaim your virtues in the open street. I need not remind you of the aged, the blind, and the lame, to whose scanty comforts we always added by contributions from those allowances which are too often spent at schools in trash and follies; and you all know how much we effected with only twenty or thirty shillings a week collected from fines and voluntary subscriptions. LETTER XLIV. Duties to Parents and Relations. MY DEAR CHIldren, I have in my last pointed out your duties to inferiors, the observance of which is always a test of the goodness of your heart, for there is little merit in consulting your own convenience and interest by behaving with propriety to equals and superiors. True virtue must be without any possible motive of self interest, and therefore best appears when displayed in acts of justice and kindness to those who have not the power of making returns. There is, however, another class of duties which involve all others, and with the importance of which you cannot be too deeply impressed. I mean respect, love, obedience, and homage to parents, your natural guardians; your disinterested, unchangeable, and devoted friends; without whom the world would be a wilderness, and yourselves the prey of its arts, frauds, and cruelty. Remember that whatever your parents require of you is suggested by deep-rooted affection, and by the wisdom of experience, for your benefit, and beware of the folly of setting up your own conceits and fancies in opposition to their deliberate and anxious opinions. They can have no motive but your benefit and happiness, and in directing you they see quicksands and rocks likely to be injurious and fatal, of which you can have no suspicion. If they are unfortunate, pity and assist them, but never reproach them; and if calamity may be ascribed to their fault, exert yourself to correct the evil consequences, and do not add to their affliction by your repinings and upbraidings. The world is open to your industry and talents, and there will be both honour and glory in being the founder of your own fortune. If you in your prosperity forget your afflicted parents, that proof of a bad heart will be a curse to you, all men will be found in conspiracy against you, and your fall will be more rapid than your rise. Should your kind parents have given you a better education than they themselves had the good fortune to receive, your respect and gratitude ought to be so much the greater to them as the sources of your knowledge, and never indulge contempt of those to whom you are indebted for so valuable an acquisition. Of course if your mother was well educated, you will aspire to be her equal in every accomplishment as well as every virtue. If any of your relatives are poor, do not disown them or frown upon them, for all the members of families are not equally prosperous, and every family, even the highest in the kingdom, has branches struggling against adversity. Instead of adding to their affliction by cold distance or formal charity, consider in what you can serve them; and if their wants are owing to indiscretions which are incorrigible, do not render yourself ridiculous by disowning them, for there is no one, even the proudest, who does not know that he stands in the same degree of kindred to those in similar indigence. In truth, my dears, in the same nation we are all of one family; and strictly speaking, without ascending to Adam or Noah, we have all, the rich, the poor, the fascinating and the loathsome, a descent from common ancestry, and have the same nature, the same passions, the same wants, the same appetites, and the same diseases. As all of us have two parents, and those had four parents, those four eight, those eight sixteen, &c. &c. so every thirty years reckoned backwards connects us in double numbers with the entire community. Go but ten generations back, or to 1526, and every one of you may trace thousand direct ancestors; and twenty three generations back, or 700 years, necessarily increase these to above eight millions, or to the entire population of the period. Every individual of that age, i. e. 1126, the epoch of Henry the first, was therefore necessarily an ancestor of every individual of this age. We are consequently all brethren, relations, and members of one great family, whether ennobled or plebeian, rich or poor, ugly or handsome, wise or foolish; and in that sense, if other considerations did not equally operate, we ought, as brethren, to love one another, and to live together in forbearance and charity. LETTER XLV. Duties to Governesses, Teachers, and Masters. I need say little of your behaviour to your governess, the teachers, and masters. The subordination of young females is usually exemplary, and, in my long experience, I never had but one occasion in which I was obliged to expel one of my pupils, for incorrigible rudeness. To improve, you must apply to your successive studies with diligence, and whatever is done to get the better of habits of idleness and inattention, ought to insure your gratitude. Listening to instruction, and profiting by it, ought to be a habit; and nothing can be more unfortunate for yourselves, or more distressing to those who have the charge of your education, than the conceit that you already know what you are told, or a haughty assumption that you can do very well without such knowledge. I always thought highly of those of my pupils who applied often for the use of books in my library, and who had proper books of their own which they enjoyed out of school hours. As much may thus be learnt, aye, and better learnt, than by formal instruction. Books of history, geography, select voyages and travels, and biography, merit in this way your special attentions. The Anas, as they are called, of Music, by Busby, and of the Fine Arts, by Elmes, are inexhaustible sources of amusement and instruction on these objects of your own studies; and the perusal of them would expand your views of music and the arts, and add to the zeal and perfection of your practice in both. It is absolutely semibarbarous, not to be familiar with the anecdotes and history of favourite studies, and no subjects abound in more interesting circumstances than music and the fine arts, while there are no other books than those named, which are completely to your purpose. It was always an inflexible rule with me, to expect the same deference to be paid to my teachers as to myself. They are more intimately engaged in your instruction, and your homage ought to be divided between them and me, and not reserved for me alone; nor should you suppose that liberties may be taken with the teacher, which you would not presume to take with your governess. I certainly admit, that, after school hours, a relaxation ought to be permitted; and this relaxation, the necessary presence of the teachers ought not to restrain. In school-hours it ought to be a quaker's meeting; but when they are over, your health, your spirits, and happiness, require exercise and liberty. In this respect, the business, and not my presence or that of the teachers, ought to make the difference. I have been quite as happy to witness your hilarity and sports in your own hours, as your decorum and attention in the hours of school. I never, for this reason, was friendly to evening |