Part 176 (2/2)
Projectors in a state are generally rewarded above their merit; projectors in the republic of letters, never. If they are wrong, every dunce thinks himself ent.i.tled to laugh at their disappointment; if they are right, men of superior talents think their honour engaged to oppose, as every new discovery is a tacit diminution of their own pre-eminence.
To aim at excellence, our reputation, our friends, and our all must be ventured: by aiming only at mediocrity, we run no risque, and we do little when prudence and greatness are ever persuading us to contrary pursuits. The one instructs us to be content with our station, and to find happiness in setting bounds to every wish. The other impels us to superiority, and calls nothing felicity but rapture. The one directs us to follow mankind, and to act and think with the rest of the world; the other drives us from the croud, and exposes us as a mark to all the shafts of envy or ignorance.
The rewards of mediocrity are immediately paid; those attending excellence generally paid in reversion. In a word, the little mind which loves itself, will write and think with the vulgar, but the great mind will be bravely eccentric, and scorn the beaten road, from universal benevolence.
The _WANDERINGS_ of the IMAGINATION.
_BY MRS. GOOCH._
(Continued from page 363.)
Conclusion of the _HISTORY OF CAPTAIN S----._
”Various are the stages of human woe; and long is the catalogue of mental miseries!--A load of grief, so new, so unexpected, burst with the early dawn on my distracted senses, and awakened them to everlasting wretchedness.
”The next morning I went to the Bedford, and enquired for Captain Nesbitt. The waiter told me he was not there, but asked my name, and said he had a letter for me. I opened it, and read as follows.
”SIR,
”As our meeting might be attended with disagreeable consequences to both, you must not be surprized at my declining it. I have but executed the commission with which you intrusted me, and at which you seem highly offended. As I am going to leave town immediately, I must beg leave to postpone till my return any thing you must have to communicate; and remain,
”SIR,
”Your humble servant,
”JAMES NESBITT.”
”I pocketed the infamous scrawl, as I shuddered at the depravity of human nature. My wife, (why cannot I blot out the dear, the sacred appellation?) was still wound about my heart, nor could I attempt to slacken, without breaking its every string. Worthless, yet still beloved woman, was it for this that I crossed the seas? for this that I submitted to an odious stigma cast upon my conduct, degrading even in idea to the character of an officer, and a gentleman?--for this that I renounced every hope of future advancement?--Cruel, cruel Isabella!
Better could I behold thee dead; for what can life be to those who have broken every tie of duty, every claim to the purest affections that can enn.o.ble the intellectual being?
”In a fit of frenzy, I flew to her lodgings. A fond, foolish hope to reclaim her, and a wish to see my still innocent child, led me beyond the bounds of prudence. She had quitted the house, and the people could not, or would not, inform me whither she was gone. I found by them, that they knew her only by the name of her seducer; and that my boy, whom they called by the same name, had accompanied his mother. My next enquiry was at the house of her relation; she had also left town, as they said, for some months.
”I returned to the Bedford-Arms, and hastily scrawled an incoherent letter, which I left in charge of the waiter there: he unwillingly took it, under pretence that Captain Nesbitt seldom came to their house, and it was uncertain when he might see him again. It ran as follows.
”SIR,
”If your heart is not callous to every feeling of social humanity, let me implore you to pity as a man, the distresses to which you have reduced me. You are young, but let me hope you are not a determined villain. A time may perhaps arrive, when you will feel, like _me_, WHAT IT IS to be a HUSBAND, and a FATHER!--The opinion of the World is of little import to those, who, blessed with conscious rect.i.tude, can defy its malice.
”Restore my wife--restore my child--I will receive her once more, as the first, best gift of Heaven; and her errors shall be blotted from the tablets of my memory. Let me conjure you, Sir, to be the friend of this unhappy woman; point out to her the path, of duly; and if you have any real affection for her, make the sacrifice of it to her honour, and future peace. As you deal by _her_, may Heaven, in justice, deal by _you!_
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