[Character by Samuel Smiles]@TWC D-Link book
Character

CHAPTER VIII
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"I'll tell it," said Smellfungus, "to the world." "You had better tell it," said Sterne, "to your physician." The restless, anxious, dissatisfied temper, that is ever ready to run and meet care half-way, is fatal to all happiness and peace of mind.

How often do we see men and women set themselves about as if with stiff bristles, so that one dare scarcely approach them without fear of being pricked! For want of a little occasional command over one's temper, an amount of misery is occasioned in society which is positively frightful.

Thus enjoyment is turned into bitterness, and life becomes like a journey barefooted amongst thorns and briers and prickles.

"Though sometimes small evils," says Richard Sharp, "like invisible insects, inflict great pain, and a single hair may stop a vast machine, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex us; and in prudently cultivating an undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let on long leases." [175] St.Francis de Sales treats the same topic from the Christian's point of view.

"How carefully," he says, "we should cherish the little virtues which spring up at the foot of the Cross!" When the saint was asked, "What virtues do you mean ?" he replied: "Humility, patience, meekness, benignity, bearing one another's burden, condescension, softness of heart, cheerfulness, cordiality, compassion, forgiving injuries, simplicity, candour--all, in short of that sort of little virtues.


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