ot our
capabilities simply considered. There is to be no complacent
self-contemplation, beruminating upon self. When self is viewed, it
must always be in the most intimate connection with its purposes.
How well were it if persons would be more careful, or rather, more
conscientious, in paying compliments. How often do we delude
another, in subject matter small or great, into the belief that he
has done well what we know he has done ill, either by silence, or
by so giving him praise on a particular point as to _imply_
approbation of the whole. Now it is undoubtedly difficult to
observe politeness in all cases compatibly with truth; and
politeness though a minor duty is a duty still. (1838.)

If truth permits you to praise, but binds you to praise with a
qualification, observe how much more acceptably you will speak, if
you put the qualification first, than if you postpone it. For
example: 'this is a good likeness; but it is a hard painting,' is
surely much less pleasing, than 'this is a hard painting; but it is
a good likeness.' The qualification is generally taken to be more
genuinely the sentiment of the speaker's mind, than the main
proposition; and it carries ostensible honesty and manliness to
propose first what is the less acceptable. (1835-6.)

IX

SPIRIT OF SUBMISSION

To go back to Fenelon's question about his own foundation. 'The great
work of religion,' as Mr. Gladstone conceived it, was set out in some
sentences of a letter written by him to Mrs. Gladstone in 1844, five
years after they were married. In these sentences we see that under all
the agitated surface of a life of turmoil and contention, there flowed a
deep composing stream of faith, obedience, and resignation, that gave
him, in face of a thousand buffets, the free mastery of all his
resources of heart and brain:--

_To Mrs. Gladstone._

13 _C.H. Terrace, Sunday evening, Jan. 21, 1844._--Although I have
carelessly left at the board of trade with your other letters that
on which I wished to have said something, yet I am going to end
this day of peace by a few words to show that what you said did not
lightly pass away from my mind. There is a beautiful little
sentence in the works of Charles Lamb concerning one who had been
afflicted: 'he gave h