2223. DIFFICULTIES, True way out of.—
If you ever find yourself environed with
difficulties and perplexing circumstances, out of
which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself,
do what is right, and be assured that that
will extricate you the best out of the worst situations.
Though you cannot see, when you take
one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth,
justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their
leading you out of the labyrinth, in the easiest
manner possible. The knot which you thought
a Gordian one, will untie itself before you.
Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that
a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty
by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by
trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This
increases the difficulties tenfold; and those, who
pursue these methods, get themselves so involved
at length, that they can turn no way but
their infamy becomes more exposed.—
To Peter Carr. Washington ed. i, 396.
(P.
1785)
