[Character by Samuel Smiles]@TWC D-Link book
Character

CHAPTER XII--THE DISCIPLINE OF EXPERIENCE
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They are like persons who have had a weighty and impressive experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, and more independent of the language current among those with whom they live."] [Footnote 1918: Hazlitt's TABLE TALK: 'On Thought and Action.'] [Footnote 201: Mungo Park declared that he was more affected by this incident than by any other that befel him in the course of his travels.

As he lay down to sleep on the mat spread for him on the floor of the hut, his benefactress called to the female part of the family to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued employed far into the night.

"They lightened their labour with songs," says the traveller, "one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it; it was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a chorus.
The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: 'The winds roared, and the rains fell.

The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree.

He has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind his corn.' Chorus--'Let us pity the white man, no mother has he!' Trifling as this recital may appear, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree.


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