Even the best-conducted women {...} have an aversion for the impotent," {...} so one should conceal one's wounds and hide the crippling deficiencies of life – poverty, misfortune, sickness, ill-success. People begin by being touched and moved to tenderness by their friends' distress; presently this changes to pity, which has something humiliating about it; then to a masterful giving of advice; and then to scorn.
( Patrick O'Brian )
[ The Far Side of the World ]
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