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 a difference
between the bashfulness which arises from a want of education, and the
shame-facedness that accompanies conscious guilt: the first by 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 at last 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 or 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.
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