The second time he took courage, and could even bear to look upon him. The first time the Fox saw the Lion, he fell down at his feet, and was ready to die with 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. 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. 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. From this fable we may observe the two extremes in which we may fall, as to 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.
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