Hitherto the young man has lived in the bosom of his family and his friends, and has been the sole object of their care; what a change to enter all at once into a region where he counts for so little; to find himself plunged into another sphere, he who has been so long the centre of his own.  What insults, what humiliation, must he endure, before he loses among strangers the ideas of his own importance which have been formed and nourished among his own people!  As a child everything gave way to him, everybody flocked to him; as a young man he must give place to every one, or if he preserves ever so little of his former airs, what harsh lessons will bring him to himself!  Accustomed to get everything he wants without any difficulty, his wants are many, and he feels continual privations.  He is tempted by everything that flatters him; what others have, he must have too; he covets everything, he envies every one, he would always be master.  He is devoured by vanity, his young heart is enflamed by unbridled passions, jealousy and hatred among the rest; all these violent passions burst out at once; their sting rankles in him in the busy world, they return with him at night, he comes back dissatisfied with himself, with others; he falls asleep among a thousand foolish schemes disturbed by a thousand fancies, and his pride shows him even in his dreams those fancied pleasures; he is tormented by a desire which will never be satisfied.  So much for your pupil; let us turn to mine.

If the first thing to make an impression on him is something sorrowful his first return to himself is a feeling of pleasure.  When he sees how many ills he has escaped he thinks he is happier than he fancied.  He shares the suffering of his fellow-creatures, but he shares it of his own free will and finds pleasure in it.  He enjoys at once the pity he feels for their woes and the joy of being exempt from them; he feels in himself that state of vigour which projects us beyond ourselves, and bids us carry elsewhere the superfluous activity of our well-being.  To pity another’s woes we must indeed know them, but we need not feel them.  When we have suffered, when we are in fear of suffering, we pity those who suffer; but when we suffer ourselves, we pity none but ourselves.  But if all of us, being subject ourselves to the ills of life, only bestow upon others the sensibility we do not actually require for ourselves, it follows that pity must be a very pleasant feeling, since it speaks on our behalf; and, on the other hand, a hard-hearted man is always unhappy, since the state of his heart leaves him no superfluous sensibility to bestow on the sufferings of others.