"If there be any good in thee," says the author of the Imitation, "believe that there is much more in others, that so thou mayest preserve humility. It hurteth thee not to submit to all men; but it hurteth thee most of all to prefer thyself even to one." Sir Henry Wotton being asked if he thought a Papist could be saved, replied, "You may be saved without knowing that." "Be assured," said Dean Young, "there can be but little honesty without thinking as well as possible of others; and there can be no safety without thinking humbly and distrustfully of ourselves." "It is easy," said Peterborough, in Imaginary Conversations, "to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty." "The character of a wise man," says Confucius, "consists in three things: to do himself what he tells others to do; to act on no occasion contrary to justice; and to bear with the weaknesses of those around him. Treat inferiors as if you might one day be in the hands of a master." "I recollect," says Saadi, "the verse which the elephant-driver rehearsed on the banks of the river Nile: 'If you are ignorant of the state of the ant under your foot, know that it resembles your own condition under the foot of the elephant.'" The stable of Confucius being burned down, when he was at court, on his return he said, "Has any man been hurt?" He did not ask about the horses. Of the death of Sir Roger de Coverley, his butler (Addison himself) wrote to The Spectator: "I am afraid he caught his death the last county-sessions, where he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman, and her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neighboring gentleman; for you know, sir, my good master was always the poor man's friend." Fénelon had a habit of bringing into his palace the wretched inhabitants of the country, whom the war had driven from their homes, and taking care of them, and feeding them at his own table. Seeing one day that one of these peasants eat nothing, he asked him the reason of his abstinence. "Alas! my lord," said the poor man, "in making my escape from my cottage, I had not time to bring off my cow, which was the support of my family. The enemy will drive her away, and I shall never find another so good." Fénelon, availing himself of his privilege of safe-conduct, immediately set out, accompanied by a servant, and drove the cow back himself to the peasant. A literary man, whose library was destroyed by fire, has been deservedly admired for saying, "I should have profited but little by my books, if they had not taught me how to bear the loss of them." The remark of Fénelon, who lost his in a similar way, is still more simple and touching. "I would much rather they were burnt than the cottage of a poor peasant." Lord Peterborough said of Fénelon, "He was a delicious creature. I was obliged to get away from him, or he would have made me pious." The influence of such a character brings to mind another passage from Saadi. "One day," he says, "as I was in the bath, a friend of mine put into my hand a piece of scented clay. I took it, and said to it, 'Art thou of heaven or earth? for I am charmed with thy delightful scent.' It answered, 'I was a despicable piece of clay; but I was some time in company of the rose: the sweet quality of my companion was communicated to me; otherwise I should have remained only what I appear to be, a bit of earth.'"