170 THE SHIPWRECK,

he cannot endure to be told of his failings—that he does
not wish to hear any thing of some particular affair: pa-
tiently he awaits a more favourable moment, and kindly -
prepares the way of rendering his monitions as unoffending
as possible ; he adopts a style of address calm, friendly,
easy and frank; and he seldom fails to conciliate the affec-
tion and gain the heart of the most irritable and pas-
sionate.

If his prudent foresight is disappointed in the result, if
it is frustrated by unjust suspicion or an excessive irrita-
bility, divine charity again marks out the rule of his con-
duct. Far from stirring up the fire of his neighbour’s an-
ger, he employs all the means his dispassionate judgment
can suggest to subdue and extinguish it: often he has
recourse to an affectionate silence, in which the semblance
of neither disdain nor contempt can be imagined; if a word
escapes him, it is at a moment he thinks most opportune,
and it is uttered with all the discretion arid sweetness re-
quisite to render it palatable to the morbid temperament
of the morally diseased individual.

It is possible, however, that neither his vigilance nor
solicitude can always dispel the clouds of anger, or restore
peace to the troubled breast. Perhaps his charitable in-
tentions may be taken in bad part: perhaps hatred and

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