It is, indeed, not easy to prescribe a successful manner of approach to
the distressed or necessitous, whose condition subjects every kind of
behaviour equally to miscarriage. He whose confidence of merit incites
him to meet, without any apparent sense of inferiority, the eyes of
those who flattered themselves with their own dignity, is considered as
an insolent leveller, impatient of the just prerogatives of rank and
wealth, eager to usurp the station to which he has no right, and to
confound the subordinations of society; and who would contribute to the
exaltation of that spirit which even want and calamity are not able to
restrain from rudeness and rebellion?
But no better success will commonly be found to attend servility and
dejection, which often give pride the confidence to treat them with
contempt. A request made with diffidence and timidity is easily denied,
because the petitioner himself seems to doubt its fitness.
Kindness is generally reciprocal; we are desirous of pleasing others,
because we receive pleasure from them; but by what means can the man
please, whose attention is engrossed by his distresses, and who has no
leisure to be officious; whose will is restrained by his necessities,
and who has no power to confer benefits; whose temper is perhaps
vitiated by misery, and whose understanding is impeded by ignorance?
It is yet a more offensive discouragement, that the same actions
performed by different hands produce different effects, and, instead of
rating the man by his performances, we rate too frequently the
performance by the man.
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