Second maxim.—­We never pity another’s woes unless we know we may suffer in like manner ourselves.

     “Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.”—­Virgil.

I know nothing go fine, so full of meaning, so touching, so true as these words.

Why have kings no pity on their people?  Because they never expect to be ordinary men.  Why are the rich so hard on the poor?  Because they have no fear of becoming poor.  Why do the nobles look down upon the people?  Because a nobleman will never be one of the lower classes.  Why are the Turks generally kinder and more hospitable than ourselves?  Because, under their wholly arbitrary system of government, the rank and wealth of individuals are always uncertain and precarious, so that they do not regard poverty and degradation as conditions with which they have no concern; to-morrow, any one may himself be in the same position as those on whom he bestows alms to-day.  This thought, which occurs again and again in eastern romances, lends them a certain tenderness which is not to be found in our pretentious and harsh morality.

So do not train your pupil to look down from the height of his glory upon the sufferings of the unfortunate, the labours of the wretched, and do not hope to teach him to pity them while he considers them as far removed from himself.  Make him thoroughly aware of the fact that the fate of these unhappy persons may one day be his own, that his feet are standing on the edge of the abyss, into which he may be plunged at any moment by a thousand unexpected irresistible misfortunes.  Teach him to put no trust in birth, health, or riches; show him all the changes of fortune; find him examples—­there are only too many of them—­in which men of higher rank than himself have sunk below the condition of these wretched ones.  Whether by their own fault or another’s is for the present no concern of ours; does he indeed know the meaning of the word fault?  Never interfere with the order in which he acquires knowledge, and teach him only through the means within his reach; it needs no great learning to perceive that all the prudence of mankind cannot make certain whether he will be alive or dead in an hour’s time, whether before nightfall he will not be grinding his teeth in the pangs of nephritis, whether a month hence he will be rich or poor, whether in a year’s time he may not be rowing an Algerian galley under the lash of the slave-driver.  Above all do not teach him this, like his catechism, in cold blood; let him see and feel the calamities which overtake men; surprise and startle his imagination with the perils which lurk continually about a man’s path; let him see the pitfalls all about him, and when he hears you speak of them, let him cling more closely to you for fear lest he should fall.  “You will make him timid and cowardly,” do you say?  We shall see; let us make him kindly to begin with, that is what matters most.

Third maxim.—­The pity we feel for others is proportionate, not to the amount of the evil, but to the feelings we attribute to the sufferers.