a safer guide than the promptings of human nature. To know that a deception dark as it is base has been practised upon thee, — by those deemed at least indebted friends whose welfare thou hast promoted, — and yet not to avenge thyself, is to do good to thyself; is to take a new standpoint whence to look upward; is to be calm amid excitement, just amid lawlessness, and pure amid corruption.
To be a great man or woman, to have a name whose odor fills the world with its fragrance, is to bear with patience the bufferings of envy or malice — even while seeking to raise those barren natures to a capacity for a higher life. We should look with pitying eye on the momentary success of all villanies, on mad ambition and low revenge. This will bring us also to look on a kind, true, and just person, faithful to conscience and honest beyond reproach, as the only suitable fabric out of which to weave an existence fit for earth and heaven.
Contagion
Whatever man sees, feels, or in any way takes cognizance of, must be caught through mind; inasmuch as perception, sensation, and consciousness belong to mind and not to matter. Floating with the popular current of mortal thought without questioning the reliability of its conclusions, we do what others do, believe what others believe, and say what others say. Common consent is contagious, and it makes disease catching.
People believe in infectious and contagious diseases,
