Excerpt from Laurence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1760), Book 2, chapter 12:

[M]y uncle Toby had scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.

—Go—says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,—and which after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;—I'1l not hurt thee, says my uncle Toby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand, —I'll not hurt a hair of thy head: —Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape; —go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee? —This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation;—or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it; —or in what degree, or by what secret magic, a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I know not; this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncle Toby, has never since been worn out of my mind: And tho' I would not depreciate what the study of the Literae humaniores, at the university, have done for me in that respect, or discredit the other helps, of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since; —yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental impression.

*This is to serve for parents and governors instead of a whole volume upon the subject.