gouverneur morris, his younger friend, cannot teach us that. but what he can offer us is a model for how to live as a private man. that despite your injuries, despite the bodies you see in the streets, despite the convulsions that perhaps you unwisely dream of or that you actually witness, there is something more important or at least something different than politics and that is living your life and treating people around you well. one of his letters to one of his many suffering european friends has this sentence. "to try to do good, to avoid evil, a little severity for oneself, a little indulgence for others. this is the means to maintain some good result out of our poor system. to love one's friends, to be loved by them, this is the means to greatness." if you read that in a book when you were in some turmoil or upheaval, it might be enraging. it seems too pat. but if you heard it from a man with one leg and missing most of an arm it's not just talk. he's been there. he knows what bad things are. but he's encouraging us to do good, to look a