is it that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe the motto on
his coach, shall raise a fortune, and make a figure, while I possess
merely the common conveniences of life." Was it for fortune, then,
that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and gave the sprightly
years of youth to study and reflection? You then have mistaken your
path, and ill employed your industry. "What reward have I then for all
my labor?" What reward! A large comprehensive soul, purged from vulgar
fears and prejudices, able to interpret the works of man and God. A
perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the conscious dignity of superior
intelligence. Good Heaven! what other reward can you ask! "But is it
not a reproach upon the economy of Providence that such a one, who is
a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a
nation?" Not in the least. He made himself a mean, dirty fellow, for
that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, and his liberty
for it. Do you envy him his bargain? Will you hang your head in his
presence, because he outshines you in equipage and show? Lift up your
brow with a noble confidence, and say to yourself, "I have not these
things, it is true; but it is because I have not desired, or sought
them; it is because I possess something better. I have chosen my lot!
I am content, and satisfied." The most characteristic mark of a great
mind is to choose some one object, which it considers important, and
pursue that object through life. If we expect the purchase, we must
pay the price.'
'There is a pretty passage in one of Lucian's dialogues, where Jupiter
complains to Cupid, that, though he has had so many intrigues, he was
never sincerely beloved. "In order to be loved," says Cupid, "you must
lay aside your aegis and your thunder-bolts; you must curl and perfume
your hair, and place a garland on your head, and walk with a soft
step, and assume a winning, obsequious deportment." "But," replied
Jupiter, "I am not willing to resign so much of my dignity." "Then,"
returned Cupid, "leave off desiring to be loved."'
These remarks by Mrs. Barbauld are full of sound philosophy. Who has
not observed, in his circle of acquaintance, and in the recesses
of his own heart, the same inconsistency of expectation, the same
peevishness of discontent.
Says Germanicus, 'There is my dunce of a classmate has found his
way into Congress, and is living amid the perpetual excitement of
intellectual minds, while I am cooped up in an ignorant country
parish, obliged to be at the beck and call of every old woman, who
happens to feel uneasy in her mind.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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