Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

$497. Laughing and Crying.-Democritus, who was always laughing, lived one hundred and nine years: Heraclitus, who never ceased crying, only sixty. Laughing then is best; and to laugh at one another is perfectly justifiable, since we are told that the gods themselves, though they made us as they pleased, cannot help laughing at us.-Steevens.

498. Life compared to the Seasons.

[ocr errors]

Spring first, like infancy, shoots out his head,
With milky juice requiring to be fed;

Helpless, though fresh, and wanting to be led.

*

*

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Last, winter creeps along with tardy pace,

Sour is his front, and furrow'd is his face. Dryden's Ovid.

499. Pride and Choler.-Pride and Choler are like the fox, offering to go out when his belly was full, which enlarging him bigger than the passage, made him stay, and be taken with shame. They that would come to preferment by pride, are like those who would ascend stairs on horseback.

Other dispositions may have the benefits of a friendly monitor; but these by their vices do seem to give a defiance to counsel. Since when men once know them, they will rather be silent, and let them rest in their folly, than by admonishing them, run into a certain brawl.

There is another thing shews them to be both base. They are both most awed by the most abject passion of the mind, fear. We dare neither be proud to one that can punish us, nor choleric to one that is above us.

Every man flies from the burning house: and one of these hath a fire in his heart, and the other discovers it in his face.

I would not live like a beast, pushed at by all the world for loftiness; nor yet like a wasp, stinging upon every touch. And this moreover shall add to my misliking them, that I hold them things accursed for sowing of strife among brethren.-Feltham.

LONDON: Printed and Published by J. H. STARIE, 59, Museum Street, and to be had of all Booksellers.

Materials for Thinking,

EXTRACTED FROM THE WORKS OF

ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORS.

WHATEVER CHARITY WE OWE TO MEN'S PERSONS, WE OWE NONE TO THEIR ERRORS."-Bishop Burnet.

No. XX.

Published Weekly.

[Price One Penny.

500. On the General Activity and the Diffusion of Intelligence in America.---It is incontestible, that the people often direct public affairs ill; very but the people cannot meddle in public affairs without the circle of their ideas being extended, and their minds emancipated from their ordinary routine. The man of the lower class, who exercises a part in the government of society, conceives a certain esteem for himself. As he is then a power in the state, intellects of a high order of instruction devote themselves to the service of his intellect. He sees on all sides of him people address themselves to him, courting his support; and in seeking to deceive him in a thousand different ways, they enlighten him. In politics he takes part in undertakings which have not originated with himself, but which gives him a general taste for enterprises. Every day there are suggested to him new improvements to be made in the common property, and he feels his desire sharpened to ameliorate that which is his own. He is neither more virtuous nor happy, perhaps, but he is more enlightened and more active than his predecessors. I am satisfied that democratic institutions, combined with the physical character of the country, are the cause---not, as so many people say, the direct, but the indirect cause---of the prodigious industrial prosperity observable in the United States. The laws do not generate it, but the people learn to produce it in making the laws.

When the enemies of democracy affirm that a single person does better what he undertakes than the government of all, they seem to me to be in the right. The government of one, if we suppose on both sides equality of instruction, has more evenness in its undertakings than the multitude; it shows more perseverance, a more comprehensive plan, more perfection in the details, a juster discernment in the selection of individuals. Those who deny these things have never seen a democratic republic, or have judged of it from a small number of examples. Democracy, even where local circumstances and the state of the

people's minds permit it to subsist, does not present a spectacle of administrative regularity and methodical order in the government---that is true. Democratic freedom does not execute each of its enterprises with the same perfection as an intelligent despotism. It often abandons them without having reaped their fruit, or undertakes such as are perilous. But in the long run it produces greater results; it does less well each particular thing, but it does a greater number of things. Under its empire, what is truly great is not what the public administration does, but what is done without it, and independently of its aid. Democracy does not give to the people the most skilful government, but it does what the most skilful government is often unable to do,--it diffuses through all society a restless activity, a superabundance of force, an energy, which never exist where democracy is not, and which, wherever circumstances are at all favourable, may give birth to prodigies. Therein consist its true advantages.---De Tocqueville.

In the

501. Topics of Discourse. I have often admired the importance of the subjects which are discussed by these enlightened and polished whites in their accidental concurrences aud social assemblies. first place, they take particular care to inquire into the state of each other's health: "My dear sir, how do you do? How do you feel this morning? I hope you are well." Piomingo! Why do they ask these preposterous questions? Do they feel any solicitude for the health and prosperity of their friends and acquaintances? No such thing, they would send each other to the devil in a moment if it were in their power. Do they wish to render each other unhappy by bringing to their respective recollections the frailties, pains, diseases, and infirmities of the body? Do they wish to damp the general joy by calling up ideas of death and the grave?

In the second place, they proceed to inform each other seriously and formally concerning the nature of the weather, the temperature of the air, the course of the wind, and the changes of the moon. "Well," says one, "this is a pleasant morning: the rain we had yesterday was extremely refreshing: and this warm sun, following the rain, will promote vegetation with rapidity." If it be summer, we hear, "a very warm day this! is it not sir? My God! 'tis excessive hot: it makes me perspire like the devil!" Here I must remark that these polished beings are very apt to hook God and the devil into the same sentence: why they do So, I cannot tell, unless it be merely to embellish their discourse. Father! I speak English fluently; but I never could exactly discover when to introduce GOD or when to have recourse to the devil, in my conversation: indeed, sometimes I am ready to conclude that those names are used without the least discrimination: thus, “Good God how it rains!" and "It rains like the devil!" seem to convey the same idea precisely. If two friends encounter each other in the street in December or January, after the customary interrogations and re

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"" a cold

sponses concerning the health of themselves and families, after having coughed and complained of a cold, and having given a circumstantial detail of the manner in which this cold was unfortunately caught; after having whined about an aching head, a poor appetite, a sick stomach, a miserable digestion, a weakness of the back, a sore shin, a crick in the neck, a pain in the hip, &c. &c., they proceed, day, sir." 'Yes sir, quite cold." 'It blows confoundedly." "Yes sir, a blustry day; a blustry day indeed sir." Quite a deep snow this." "Yes sir, quite a quite a snowy day, sir: this is what I call winter." Piomingo! What is their purpose (if they have any purpose at all) in relating these circumstances, which must necessarily be as well known to one as to the other? Does it arise from habitual garrulity, or from an itching propensity to hear themselves talk? Each one hastens to be delivered of the important intelligence, lest his friend should begin, and consequently deprive him of the pleasure of exercising the organs of speech. Were not the whites an intelligent people, I should certainly suppose they were reduced, by the paucity of their ideas, to the deplorable necessity of talking nonsense or continuing silent. The Savage.

502. Praise.

The love of Praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns more or less and glows in every heart;
The proud to gain it toils on toils endure,
The modest shun it but to make it sure.

O'er globes and sceptres, now, on thrones it dwells,
Now trims the midnight lamp in college cells.
"Tis tory, whig; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads,
Harangues in senates, squeaks in masquerades.
It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head,
And heaps the plains with mountains of the dead;
Nor ends with life; but nods in sable plumes,

Adorns our hearse and flatters on our tombs.-Young.

503. The Human Understanding.—The peculiar manner in which we form ideas, is that which constitutes the genius and character of the mind. To form our ideas of things on their actual relations, only betokens a solid understanding: whereas to be contented with their apparent relations, betrays a superficial one. To conceive these relations as they really exist, displays a right judgment: to conceive mistaken notions of them, denotes a wrong one. Those who see imaginary relations, that have neither reality nor appearance, are madmen ; while those who make no comparison between them are idiots. The less or greater aptitude to compare these ideas, and discover such relations, is what constitutes a greater or less degree of understanding.

Rousseau.

504. Exaggerations.-Never to speak by superlatives is a sign of a wise man; for that way of speaking wounds either truth or prudence. Exaggerations are so many prostitutions of reputation; because they discover the weakness of understanding, and the bad discerning of him that speaks. Excessive praises excite both curiosity and envy; so that if merit answer not the value that is set upon it, as it generally happens, general opinion revolts against the imposture, and makes the flattered and the flatterer both ridiculous.-Anon.

505. Lessons of Wisdom have never such power over us as when they are wrought into the heart through the groundwork of a story which engages the passion; is it that we are like iron, and must first be heated before we can be wrought upon? or, is the heart so in love with deceit, that where a true report will not reach it, we must cheat it with a fable in order to come at the truth ?-Sterne's Sermons.

own.

506. Merit.-To undeceive a person prejudiced in favour of his own merit, is to do him the same bad office that was done to the madman at Athens, who fancied all the vessels that came into port to be his This noble Athenian, when recovered from his indisposition, declared that he had never more pleasure than whilst he was distempered, which he remembered well; adding that his friends would have obliged him much, to have let him enjoy a happiness that put him in possession of all things, without depriving any body of the least.

Rochefoucault.

507. Passions. While we labour to subdue our passions, we should take care not to extinguish them. Subduing our passions is disengaging ourselves from the world; to which, however, whilst we reside in it, we must always bear relation; and we may detach ourselves to such a degree as to pass an useless and insipid life, which we were not meant to do. Our existence here is at least one part of a system.

Shenstone.

508. Abuse of Names.-It is by giving fair names to foul actions, that those who would start at real vice are led to practise its lessons, under the disguise of virtue.-Scott.

509. Hunger.-Of all the terrors of nature, that of one day or other dying by hunger is the greatest; and it is wisely wove into our frame to awaken man to industry, and call forth his talents; and though we seem to go on carelessly, sporting with it as we do with other terrors, yet he that sees this enemy fairly, and in his most frightful shape, will need no long remonstrance to make him turn out of the way to avoid bim.-Sterne's Sermons.

« ZurückWeiter »