English essays -- 19th century; Great Britain -- Social life and customs; London (England) -- Description and travel
And about ourselves? My good people, do you by chance know any man or
woman who has formed unjust conclusions regarding his neighbor? Have you
ever found yourself willing, nay, eager to believe evil of some man
whom you hate? Whom you hate because he is successful, and you are not:
because he is rich, and you are poor: because he dines with great men
who don't invite you: because he wears a silk gown, and yours is still
stuff: because he has been called in to perform the operation though you
lived close by: because his pictures have been bought and yours returned
home unsold: because he fills his church, and you are preaching to empty
pews? If your rival prospers have you ever felt a twinge of anger? If
his wife's carriage passes you and Mrs. Tomkins, who are in a cab,
don't you feel that those people are giving themselves absurd airs of
importance? If he lives with great people, are you not sure he is a
sneak? And if you ever felt envy towards another, and if your heart has
ever been black towards your brother, if you have been peevish at his
success, pleased to hear his merit depreciated, and eager to believe all
that is said in his disfavor--my good sir, as you yourself contritely
own that you are unjust, jealous, uncharitable, so, you may be sure,
some men are uncharitable, jealous, and unjust regarding YOU.
The proofs and manuscript of this little sermon have just come from
the printer's, and as I look at the writing, I perceive, not without a
smile, that one or two of the pages bear, “strange to say,” the mark of
a Club of which I have the honor to be a member. Those lines quoted in
a foregoing page are from some noble verses written by one of Mr.
Addison's men, Mr. Tickell, on the death of Cadogan, who was amongst the
most prominent “of Marlborough's captains and Eugenio's friends.” If
you are acquainted with the history of those times, you have read how
Cadogan had his feuds and hatreds too, as Tickell's patron had his, as
Cadogan's great chief had his. “The Duke of Marlborough's character has
been so variously drawn” (writes a famous contemporary of the duke's),
“that it is hard to pronounce on either side without the suspicion
of flattery or detraction. I shall say nothing of his military
accomplishments, which the opposite reports of his friends and enemies
among the soldiers have rendered problematical. Those maligners who deny
him personal valor, seem not to consider that this accusation is charged
at a venture, since the person of a general is too seldom exposed, and
that fear which is said sometimes to have disconcerted him before action
might probably be more for his army than himself.” If Swift could hint
a doubt of Marlborough's courage, what wonder that a nameless scribe of
our day should question the honor of Clyde?
THE LAST SKETCH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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