Letters from a Father to His Son

at home or at school, to offer your companions the first choice, or
divide it with them. You will feel yourself afterwards much more
gratified in so doing than if you had appropriated the whole to
yourself, and a pleasing sensation will come into your mind,
rendering you satisfied with your own conduct.
Self-denial also is to be observed not only in such matters as I
have referred to, but in all your doings. If you wish to walk or play
when you are asked to remain quiet or the reverse, always
immediately give up your own desire, and submit cheerfully and
readily to the directions of your friends or teachers.
Sacrifice your self-will whenever you are called upon. At first you
will find it difficult, but after a few efforts it will become easier.
You will find that the quiet and kind manner (the result of your
self-government) which this course of conduct will render
habitual to you, will be of great service to you, and will create
friends wherever you go.
Of course, you will clearly understand that your giving way on
such occasions is not intended to extend to instances where you
may be asked by improper people to do what is wrong. Firmness
of character is quite consistent with the most perfect self-denial,
and you know now, and will know better still when you grow
older, that the giving way to the wishes of others in affairs of
comparatively trifling consequence, and which do not involve a
compromise of your principles or a deviation from rectitude, is
quite a different thing from abandoning those straight paths of
virtue and honor which are clear and well defined, and which are
never to be forsaken or departed from under any pretense or
upon any solicitation whatever.
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