CHAPTER VII.
If to confer happiness be the greatest luxury, he who has learned to impart it, with the least labour, may be considered an adept in a highly important science. Whoever is ambitious of this distinction would be wise, sometimes to consult the enjoyment of children. Here the elastic, unsubdued spirit will co-operate with his design, and those obstacles, which arise from habitual sorrow, deep knowledge of the infirmity of our nature, or sickening acquaintance with the insufficiency of earthly pleasures, are not to be encountered.
Less pleasing when possest,
The tear forgot, as soon as shed,
The sun-shine of the breast."
This truth was well understood by Madam L———, and practised with that ardour which the love of benevolence excited. Her object was not that indulgence of the appetites, and passions of children, which many indolent teachers, and misguided parents seem to consider their chief good, and the surest method of conciliating affection. She perceived that the fondness, manifested for those who procured them selfish gratifications, was not an enduring
