Begin thy morning with these thoughts: I shall meet the meddler, the
ingrate, the scorner, the hypocrite, the envious man, the cynic. These
men are such because they know not to discern the difference between
good and evil. But I know that Goodness is Beauty and that Evil is
Loathsomeness: I know that the real nature of the evil-doer is akin to
mine, not only physically but in a unity of intelligence and in
participation in the Divine Nature. Therefore I know that I cannot be
harmed by such persons, nor can they thrust upon me what is base. I
know, too, that I should not be angry with my kinsmen nor hate them,
because we are all made to work together fitly like the feet, the hands,
the eyelids, the rows of the upper and the lower teeth. To be at strife
one with another is therefore contrary to our real nature; and to be
angry with one another, to despise one another, _is_ to be at strife one
with another. (Book ii,§ I.)
Fashion thyself to the circumstances of thy lot. The men whom Fate hath
made thy comrades here, love; and love them in sincerity and in truth.
(Book vi., § 39.)
This is distinctive of men,--to love those who do wrong. And this thou
shalt do if thou forget not that they are thy kinsmen, and that they do
wrong through ignorance and not through design; that ere long thou and
they will be dead; and more than all, that the evil-doer hath really
done thee no evil, since he hath left thy conscience unharmed. (Book
viii., §22.)