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Charlotte Brontë [2] understood the tit-for-tat strategy. Here is Jane Eyre [3] talking to a schoolmate who admits to finding it easier to obey kind teachers than abusive ones:
You are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would get worse and worse.