, at a time when she is weak or
tired--driving one way for your own mere amusement, when it is a real
inconvenience to your companion not to go another--expressing or acting
on a disinclination to accompany your friend or sister when she cannot
go alone--refusing to give up a book that is always within your reach to
another who may have only this opportunity of reading it--walking too
far or too fast, to the serious annoyance of a tired or delicate
companion--refusing, or only consenting with ill-humour, to write a
letter, or to do a piece of work, or to entertain a visitor, or to pay a
visit, when the person whose more immediate business it is, has, from
want of time, and not from idleness or laziness, no power to do what she
requests of you--dwelling on all the details of a painful subject, for
the mere purpose of giving vent to and thus relieving your own feelings,
though it may be by the harrowing up of those of others who are less
able to bear it. All these are indeed trifles--but
Trifles make the sum of human things,[45]
and are sure to occur every day, and to form the character into such
habits as will fit or unfit it for great proofs of unselfishness, should
such be ever called for.
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