my own and free, if I once say a thing, I conceive that I have bound myself, and that delivering it to the knowledge of another, I have positively enjoined it my own performance.  Methinks I promise it, if I but say it:  and therefore am not apt to say much of that kind.  The sentence that I pass upon myself is more severe than that of a judge, who only considers the common obligation; but my conscience looks upon it with a more severe and penetrating eye.  I lag in those duties to which I should be compelled if I did not go: 

     “Hoc ipsum ita justum est, quod recte fit, si est voluntarium.”

     ["This itself is so far just, that it is rightly done, if it is
     voluntary.”—­Cicero, De Offic., i. 9.]

If the action has not some splendour of liberty, it has neither grace nor honour: 

          “Quod vos jus cogit, vix voluntate impetrent:” 

     ["That which the laws compel us to do, we scarcely do with a will.” 
     —­Terence, Adelph., iii. 3, 44.]

where necessity draws me, I love to let my will take its own course: 

          “Quia quicquid imperio cogitur, exigenti magis,
          quam praestanti, acceptum refertur.”

     ["For whatever is compelled by power, is more imputed to him that
     exacts than to him that performs.”—­Valerius Maximus, ii. 2, 6.]

I know some who follow this rule, even to injustice; who will sooner give than restore, sooner lend than pay, and will do them the least good to whom they are most obliged.  I don’t go so far as that, but I’m not far off.

I so much love to disengage and disobligate myself, that I have sometimes looked upon ingratitudes, affronts, and indignities which I have received from those to whom either by nature or accident I was bound in some way of friendship, as an advantage to me; taking this occasion of their ill-usage, for an acquaintance and discharge of so much of my debt.  And though I still continue to pay them all the external offices of public reason, I, notwithstanding, find a great saving in doing that upon the account of justice which I did upon the score of affection, and am a little eased of the attention and solicitude of my inward will: 

     “Est prudentis sustinere, ut currum, sic impetum benevolentia;”

     ["’Tis the part of a wise man to keep a curbing hand upon the
     impetus of friendship, as upon that of his horse.” 
     —­Cicero, De Amicit., c. 17.]

’tis in me, too urging and pressing where I take; at least, for a man who loves not to be strained at all.  And this husbanding my friendship serves me for a sort of consolation in the imperfections of those in whom I am concerned.  I am very sorry they are not such as I could wish they were, but then I also am spared somewhat of my application and engagement towards them.  I approve of a man who is the less fond of his child for having a scald head, or for being crooked; and not only when he is ill-conditioned, but also when he is of unhappy disposition, and imperfect in his limbs (God himself has abated so much from his value and natural estimation), provided he carry himself in this coldness of affection with moderation and exact justice:  proximity, with me, lessens not defects, but rather aggravates them.