"Be still more courteous toward your sisters. Their sex is endowed with a powerful attraction; it is a divine gift which they use to make the house pleasant and cheerful. You will find in your sisters the delicious charm of womanly virtues; and since nature has made them more feeble and sensitive than you, be attentive to them in their troubles, console them, and do not cause them any unnecessary pain. "Those who contract the habit of being ill-natured and rude toward their brothers and sisters, are rude and ill-natured toward everybody else. If the home-intercourse is tender and true, man will experience in his other social relations the same need of esteem and noble affections." =129. Duties of masters toward their servants.=--One of the most important functions of home administration, is the management of domestics. It comprises two things: _choice_ and _direction_. It is well known how important in a household the choice of servants is; as it is they who attend to the marketing and pay the bills, so that the finances of the house are, to some extent, in their hands.[87] But this is but one of the lesser features of the influence of servants in a household; the most serious one is their familiar intercourse with the children; and it is there especially that it becomes necessary to make sure of their fidelity and honesty. Yet to make a careful and successful choice is of no use, if one is ignorant of the art of directing and governing, which consists in a just medium between too much lenity and too much severity. The master of the house should, of course, always have his eyes open, but he should also know that no human being learns to do things well, if he is not allowed to act with some sort of freedom. _Surveillance_ and _confidence_ are the two principles of a wise domestic government. Without the first, one is apt to be cheated; without the second, one cheats one's self in depriving the servant of the most energetic elements of human will, responsibility and honor.[88] The master, again, should avoid being violent and brutal toward his servants. He should require of them all that is just, yet without pushing his requirements to the point of persecution. Many persons deprive themselves of good servants, because they cannot patiently bear with the inevitable defects inherent in human nature.