[Page 475: The Frisick language. AEtat 54.]
'There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction,
which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature
has given him something peculiar to himself. This vanity makes one mind
nurse aversion, and another actuate desires, till they rise by art much
above their original state of power; and as affectation, in time,
improves to habit, they at last tyrannise over him who at first
encouraged them only for show. Every desire is a viper in the bosom,
who, while he was chill, was harmless; but when warmth gave him
strength, exerted it in poison. You know a gentleman, who, when first he
set his foot in the gay world, as he prepared himself to whirl in the
vortex of pleasure, imagined a total indifference and universal
negligence to be the most agreeable concomitants of youth, and the
strongest indication of an airy temper and a quick apprehension. Vacant
to every object, and sensible of every impulse, he thought that all
appearance of diligence would deduct something from the reputation of
genius; and hoped that he should appear to attain, amidst all the ease
of carelessness, and all the tumult of diversion, that knowledge and
those accomplishments which mortals of the common fabrick obtain only by
mute abstraction and solitary drudgery. He tried this scheme of life
awhile, was made weary of it by his sense and his virtue; he then wished
to return to his studies; and finding long habits of idleness and
pleasure harder to be cured than he expected, still willing to retain
his claim to some extraordinary prerogatives, resolved the common
consequences of irregularity into an unalterable decree of destiny, and
concluded that Nature had originally formed him incapable of rational
employment.
Pages:
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492