“Exercising many benevolent dispositions.”

379665783_837442611157477_34423291378276109_n (1)"A day seldom passes which does not afford us some opportunity of being useful to our friends, or of pardoning our enemies; of bearing with the infirmities of those about us, or of conferring benefits upon them. But a life of seclusion from the world (into which we are sent to prepare ourselves for a better, by the exercise of active virtue) must necessarily prevent the exercise of many benevolent dispositions."
(Marshall's Fenelon, 1821, 130)
 
Remember, this is an educated late Georgian age woman, translating a quite florid style of early 18th Century French, into early 19th Century literary English.
 
Allow for that, and maybe read it again. Then maybe think about what it might mean to find opportunities to 'confer benefits' on others, and to 'exercise benevolent dispositions'!

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