Page:A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books Chiefly containing Consolations Against Publick Evils.pdf/89

68 ties one who is miserable. As it is a signe of a weak and bad Eye to grow Blood-shot at the sight of one that is so: So is it of a weak Mind to grieve at the sight of one that grieves. Pitty is rightly defin'd, THE VICE OF A SLENDER AND MEAN MIND FAINTING AT THE APPEARANCE OF ANOTHERS MISFORTUNE. What then? Are we so rigid and severe as not to suffer that any should be mov'd or affected with the grief of another? Yes, to be affected I approve, but then it must be so as to assist, not so as to lament. I am for Mercy, but not for Pitty. For thus I am willing to distinguish at this time, and a while to recede from our Porch the better to instruct. I call Mercy AN INCLINATION OF THE MIND TO LIGHTEN THE POVERTY OR ANGUISH OF ANOTHER. This is that Virtue Lipsius which you discover as it Rh