Characters and characteristics in literature; English literature
The confidence of nobility has rendered him ignoble, as the
opinion of wealth makes some men poor, and as those that are born to
estates neglect industry and have no business but to spend, so he being
born to honour believes he is no further concerned than to consume and
waste it. He is but a copy, and so ill done that there is no line of the
original in him but the sin only. He is like a word that by ill-custom
and mistake has utterly lost the sense of that from which it was
derived, and now signifies quite contrary; for the glory of noble
ancestors will not permit the good or bad of their posterity to be
obscure. He values himself only upon his title, which being only verbal
gives him a wrong account of his natural capacity, for the same words
signify more or less, according as they are applied to things, as
ordinary and extraordinary do at court; and sometimes the greater sound
has the less sense, as in accounts, though four be more than three, yet
a third in proportion is more than a fourth.
A HUFFING COURTIER
Is a cipher, that has no value himself but from the place he stands in.
All his happiness consists in the opinion he believes others have of it.
This is his faith, but as it is heretical and erroneous, though he
suffer much tribulation for it, he continues obstinate, and not to be
convinced. He flutters up and down like a butterfly in a garden, and
while he is pruning of his peruke takes occasion to contemplate his legs
and the symmetry of his breeches. He is part of the furniture of the
rooms, and serves for a walking picture, a moving piece of arras. His
business is only to be seen, and he performs it with admirable industry,
placing himself always in the best light, looking wonderfully politic,
and cautious whom he mixes withal. His occupation is to show his
clothes, and if they could but walk themselves they would save him the
labour and do his work as well as himself. His immunity from varlets is
his freehold, and he were a lost man without it. His clothes are but his
tailor's livery, which he gives him, for 'tis ten to one he never pays
for them. He is very careful to discover the lining of his coat, that
you may not suspect any want of integrity or flaw in him from the skin
outwards. His tailor is his creator, and makes him of nothing; and
though he lives by faith in him, he is perpetually committing iniquities
against him. His soul dwells in the outside of him, like that of a
hollow tree, and if you do but peel the bark off him he deceases
immediately. His carriage of himself is the wearing of his clothes, and,
like the cinnamon tree, his bark is better than his body. His looking
big is rather a tumour than greatness. He is an idol that has just so
much value as other men give him that believe in him, but none of his
own. He makes his ignorance pass for reserve, and, like a hunting-nag,
leaps over what he cannot get through. He has just so much of politics
as hostlers in the university have Latin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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