To adduce an opinion without some argumentative reason to support it, shows great precipitancy of idea. It is like raising a sumptuous pile for the mere gratification of witnessing its destruction.
It is not the enormity, but the certainty, of punishment that deters mankind from evil. Hope will always gain the ascendancy.
Precept and example are great opposites. The one is generally too extravagantly lavished: the other abridges more personal comfort than most people like to sacrifice.
Few individuals are patriotic enough to participate in the correction of a public abuse, until the corruption produces personal inconvenience.
Flattery will ever, more or less, accompany the first overtures to friendship. It may not be deemed impolitic if it be found to recede as the intimacy matures.
W.H.