From this fable we may observe the two extremes in which we may fail, as
to a proper behaviour towards our superiors: the one is a bashfulness,
proceeding either from a vicious guilty mind, or a timorous rusticity;
the other, an over-bearing impudence, which assumes more than becomes
it, and so renders the person insufferable to the conversation of
well-bred reasonable people. But there is this difference between the
bashfulness that arises from a want of education, and the shamefacedness
that accompanies conscious guilt; the first, by a continuance of time
and a nearer acquaintance, may be ripened into a proper liberal
behaviour; the other no sooner finds an easy practicable access, but it
throws off all manner of reverence, grows every day more and more
familiar, and branches out into the utmost indecency and irregularity.
Indeed, there are many occasions which may happen to cast an awe, or
even a terror, upon our minds at first view, without any just and
reasonable grounds; but upon a little recollection, or a nearer insight,
we recover ourselves, and can appear indifferent and unconcerned, where,
before, we were ready to sink under a load of diffidence and fear. We
should, upon such occasions, use our endeavours to regain a due degree
of steadiness and resolution; but, at the same time, we must have a care
that our efforts in that respect do not force the balance too much, and
make it rise to an unbecoming freedom and an offensive familiarity.