Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/26

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xviii
INTRODUCTION.

others. It is for those who have known what adversity is to say whether they have not met with instances of devoted attachment, of generosity, and of every other good feeling, on the part of servants, at the very time when they have been depressed by the heart-sick sensation caused by the desertion of friends. Those have been unfortunate in their experience of human nature, who cannot bear testimony to the admirable conduct of servants in fulfilling that wearisome, and often most trying, but at the same time most imperative of all earthly duties, attendance upon a sick bed. Perhaps it has not occurred to most others, as it has to me, to witness such proofs of virtue in poor people. Among the truly charitable there are, no doubt, many in whom disgust has been excited by ingratitude; but has it been excited by the hard-working and the half-starving only? It is but a very limited acquaintance with this life, which can justify the unselfish and noble nature in denouncing the poor, for being ungrateful. Be this, however, as it may, one thing is certain, that no probability of disappointment, no apprehensions of an ungrateful return, ought to have any influence with the mind of a Christian, and that such obstacles were never yet a hinderance to any man or woman whose desire was to do good.