Alexandria Gazette, Commercial And Political

From the Connecticut Courant.
THE BRIEF REMARKER
The commerce of neighbourly social life is carried on chiefly with small change. Vast favours are seldom bestowed, and heavy obligations as seldom incurred. It is the constant interchange of little obliging attentions, that constitutes connubial happiness. It springs from an uninterrupted series of little acts of mutual kindness, light as air of themselves, and costing little or nothing. but of immeasurable importance in their consequences ; as they furnish the only kind of food that will long sustain that delicate kind of friendship : for the absence of these small attentions occasions. first coldness then distrust, and finally alienation. Setting aside the brutish & the dissolute part of community, wives and husbands disagree oftener by much about trifles, than about things of real weight. Perhaps nine in ten of their disputes and squabbles grow out of little things, such as trivial neglects, petty trespasses or a word unkindly spoken. nay merely a hard look, sometimes lays the foundation of a hard quarrel. A husband never can please his wife any longer than his general conduct evinces that he is, in most respects, well pleased with her ; and so vice versa.
If we extend our view to the larger circle of social intercourse which comprehends relations, friends and acquaintance of every kind and degree, we shall find that the frequent interchange of courteous attentions and petty kindnesses, is the thing that keeps them united together and pleased with each other : and that in default of this, they presently lose all relish for one another's company The truth is, as our tempers are oftener ruffled by trifles than by things of moment, so, on the other hand, our affections are more won by a long series of trivial obligations, than by one single obligation, however great.
Man, put him where you will, is a proud hearted little animal. And hence we become attached to those who are in the habit of treating us as if they thought us worthy of their particular notice and regard, and at the same time cold and secretly resentful towards such as habitually neglect us in those little points; even though the former never have done us a single important favour, and the latter, in some one instance or other, have essentially befriended us.
With regard to neglects and trespasses in those little things which constitute the main substance of social life, the worst of it is. that they are incapable of free discussion; and, of course, the wounds from them admit of no healing. We are deeply touched with omissions or slights, for which it would be ridiculous to expostulate or complain They leave a sting which secretly rankles in our memories and festers in our imaginations ; and inwardly we feel sore. while we are ashamed to fret outwardly : the cause of our provocation being an indefinable nareless something, upon which we never can ask for an explanation, and consequently never can obtain any satisfaction.
True enough, all this is often ill grounded, or the offspring of mere jealousy. But this makes the case the more remediless : for ill grounded enmities are the most obstinate; because. as their causes exists altogether or chiefly in the imagination, the imagination is ever busy in colouring and magnifying them : whereas when the offence, though real, is of a definite form and shape, it may be got over. I have seen two Friends dispute and quarrel violently about an affair of moment, and then settle it, and presently become as kind and loving together as ever : and I have seen other two friends, who never quarreled together at all, become first cold, and at last utterly estranged, by reason of neglect or slight, on the one side or the other, which, of itself, was too trivial to be so much as mentioned to the offending party.
There are those who are willing to oblige, but are unwilling to receive obligations, though never so small, in any way or in any thing: and they boast of it as a noble quality in them. But whatever they may think of it themselves. they, in this respect, violate the general law of social commerce, which requires some degree of reciprocity, or a mutual exchange of commodities. One who is in the way of often receiving from another, little kindnesses which he is permitted in no wise to requite, sinks into a dependent : and his nominal friend is not indeed a friend, properly speaking, but a patron. The shew of utter aversion to being obliged in any case whatsoever, is commonly understood aright. it is taken for pride, or contempt or coldness, and naturally gives displeasure, whereas to accept of little obligations with frankness, and to be alike willing to oblige and to be obliged, is the proper line of social intercourse.
I will only remark further, that the little daily attentions upon which social feeling and happiness so much depend ought to be natural or spontaneous, and not loaded and stiffened with ceremony. and that the only way to make them quite natural or spontaneous, is to have written upon the heart that first of social laws, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.