Nothing can be more offensive to a man of a sincere honest heart, than
he who blows with different breaths from the same mouth: who flatters a
man to his face, and reviles him behind his back. Such double-dealing
false friends ought and will always be considered as unworthy of being
treated otherwise than as worthless and disagreeable persons: for
unless the tenor of a man’s life be always true and consistent with
itself, the less one has to do with him the better. It is unfortunately
too common with persons of this cast of character, in the exalted
stations of life, to serve a present view, or perhaps only the caprice
or whim of the moment, to blow nothing but what is warm, benevolent,
and cherishing, to raise up the expectations of a dependent to the
highest degree; and when they suspect he may prove troublesome, they
then, by a sudden cold forbidding air, easily blast all his hopes and
expectations: but such a temper, whether it proceed from a designed or
natural levity, is detestable, and has been the cause of much trouble
and mortification to many a brave deserving man.
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