DXXXI. The Proud Man.-A proud man is a fool in fermentation, that swells and boils over like a porridge-pot. He sets out his feathers like an owl, to swell and seem bigger than he is. He is troubled with a tumour and inflamma. tion of self-conceit, that renders every part of him stiff and uneasy. He has given himself sympathetic lovepowder, that works upon him to dotage, and has transformed him into his own mistress. He is his own gallant, and makes most passionate addresses to his own dear perfections. He commits idolatry to himself, and worships his own image; though there is no soul living of his church but himself, yet he believes as the church believes, and maintains his faith with the obstinacy of a fanatic. He is his own favourite; and advances himself, not only above his merit, but all mankind; is both Damon and Pythias to his own dear self, and values his crony above his soul. He gives place to no man but himself, and that with very great distance to all others, whom he esteems not worthy to approach him. He believes whatever he has receives a value in being his; as a horse in a nobleman's stable will bear a greater price than in a common market. He is so proud, that he is as hard to be acquainted with himself as with others, for he is very apt to forget who he is, and knows himself only superficially; therefore, he treats himself civilly as a stranger, with ceremony and compliment, but admits of no privacy. He strives to look bigger than himself, as well as others; and is no better than his own parasite and flatterer. A little flood will make a shallow torrent swell above its banks, and rage, and foam, and yield a roaring noise, while a deep silent stream glides quietly on; so a vain-glorious, insolent, proud man, swells with a little frail prosperity, grows big and loud, and overflows its bounds, and when he sinks, leaves mud and dirt behind him. His carriage is as glorious and haughty as if he was advanced upon men's shoulders, or tumbled over their heads like Knipperdolling. He fancies himself a Colosse; and so he is, for his head holds no proportion to his body, and his foundation is lesser that his upper stories. We can naturally take no view of ourselves, unless we look downwards, to teach us what humble admirers we ought to be of our own value. The slighter and less solid his materials are, the more room they take up, and make him swell the bigger, as feathers and cotton will stuff cushions better than things of more close and solid parts.-Butler. DXXXII. Self-love. The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others; and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great. distinction between virtue and vice.-Swift. DXXXIII. Men seldom reason.-Man is not a reasoning animal; the best you can predicate of him is, that he is an animal capable of reason, and this, too, we take upon old tradition; for it has not been my fortune yet to meet, I will not say with any one man, but I may safely say with any one order of men, who ever did reason.- Warburton's Let ters. DXXXIV. The Principle of Utility.—By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question; or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever; and, therefore, not only of every action of a private individual, but of every measure of government.-Bentham. DXXXV. On the Study of Languages.-Though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only. Hence, appear the many mistakes which have made learning generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful: and we do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much miserable Latin and Greek as might be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year.Milton. DXXXVI. Effects of Perseverance.—All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of a pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last re-3 VOL. II. sult, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings.-Johnson. DXXXVII., The really Ignorant. He that does not know those things which are of use and necessity for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know besides.Tillotson. DXXXVIII. Temptation. To resist temptation once is not a suffi cient proof of honesty. If a servant, indeed, were to resist the continued temptation of silver lying in a window, as some people let it lie, when he is sure his master does not know how much there is of it, he would give a strong proof of honesty. But this is a proof to which you have no right to put a man. You know, humanly speaking, there is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach tempta. tion to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.—Johnson. DXXXIX. Chastity.-How large a portion of chastity is sent out of the world by distant hints-nodded away, and cruelly winked into suspicion by the envy of those who are past all temptation of it themselves. How often does the reputation of a helpless creature bleed by a report-which the party, who is at the pains to propagate it, beholds with much pity and fellow-feeling-that she is heartily sorry for it—hopes in God it, is not true; however, as Archbishop Tillotson wittily observes upon it, is resolved, in the mean time, to give the report her pass, that at least it may have fair play to take its fortune in the world-to be believed or not, according to the charity of those into whose hands it shall happen to fall.-Sterne. DXL. Self-Love. Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; Wide and more wide, the o'erflowings of the mind men. DXLI. Pope's Essay on Man. The Man of Business.-An uninterrupted intercourse with the world, oppresses the man of business and ambition. The strongest spirit must at length fail and sink under it. The happiest temper must be soured by incessant returns of the opposition, the inconstancy, and the treachery of For he who lives always in the bustle of the world, lives in a perpetual warfare; here, an enemy encounters; there, a rival supplants him. The ingratitude of a friend stings him at this hour, and the pride of a superior wounds him the next. In vain he flies for relief to trifling amusements. These may afford a temporary opiate to care, but they communicate no strength to the mind. On the contrary; they leave it more soft and defenceless, when molestations and injuries renew the attack.-Dr. Blair. |