Part 2 (1/2)
”THE ear of jealousy heareth all things,” (says the wise man) frequently I believe more than is uttered, which erous
WHEN you tell those of a malicious turn, any circuh they perfectly knohoet his name, or to misapprehend you in some respect or other; and thistheirsome unhappy defect or personal infirmity he labours under; and not contented ”to tack his every error to his name,” they will, by way of farther explanation, have recourse to the faults of his father, or thesimplicity and candor in the world,mistakes, and to clear up every doubt of his identity--If you are speaking of a lady, for instance, they will perhaps ereat grandfather was a bankrupt, though she has the vanity to keep a chariot, while others who are much better born walk on foot; or they will afterwards recollect, that you may possibly mean her cousin, of the same name, whose h the daughter had the luck to , while her betters are overlooked
TO _hint at a fault_, doesout; for whatever is left for the iination to finish, will not fail to be overdone: every hiatus will be more then filled up, and every pause more than supplied There is lessa man's name than the initials of it; as a worthier person raceful suspicions by such a dangerous auity
IT is not unco attempted to deface the fairest character so industriously, that they are afraid you will begin to detect their malice, to endeavour to re you, that what they have just related is only the popular opinion; they thes are so bad as they are said to be; for their part, it is a rule with them always to hope the best It is their way never to believe or report ill of any one They will, however, mention the story in all companies, that theytheir disbelief of it
More reputations are thus hinted away by false friends, than are openly destroyed by public eneuid defence, or an auous shake of the head, or a hasty word affectedly recalled, will demolish a character more effectually, than the whole artillery of ainst it
IT is not that envy never praises--No, that would beits own reatest success of its efforts depends on the concealment of their end
When envy intends to strike a stroke of Machiavelian policy, it soerated applause; though it generally takes care, that the subject of its panegyric shall be a very indifferent and common character, so that it is well aware none of its praises will stick
IT is the unhappy nature of envy not to be contented with positiveits own tor them with the felicities of others The eyes of envy are perpetually fixed on the object which disturbs it, nor can it avert theh to procure itself the relief of a te the innocence of the first pair,
Aside the devil turn'd, For Envy, yet with jealous leer n, Eyed theated the revolt, and brought on the ruin of the angelic spirits, so it is not improbable, that it will be a principal instrument of misery in a future world, for the envious to compare their desperate condition with the happiness of the children of God; and to heighten their actual wretchedness by reflecting on what they have lost
PERHAPS envy, like lying and ingratitude, is practised with more frequency, because it is practised with iainst these crimes, is so far from an inducement to commit them, that this very consideration would be sufficient to deter the wise and good, if all others were ineffectual; for of how heinous a nature ed above the reach of human punishment, and are reserved for the final justice of God himself!
ON THE DANGER OF SENTIMENTAL OR ROMANTIC CONNEXIONS
AMONG the many evils which prevail under the sun, the abuse of words is not the least considerable By the influence of time, and the perversion of fashi+on, the plainest andassigned thenification
THE present age e of sentiment, a hich, in the implication it now bears, was unknown to our plain ancestors Sentiment is the varnish of virtue to conceal the deformity of vice; and it is not uncoion, to break through the ements, to practise every art of latent fraud and open seduction, and yet to value the _sention, which has infested letters and taintedladies_ of a certain turn, who read _sentimental books_, write _sentimental letters_, and contract _sentimental friendshi+ps_
ERROR is never likely to do so uises its real tendency, and puts on an engaging and attractive appearance Many a young woue, is extreh perhaps with a dangerous and designingon this mask of plausibility and virtue, disarms her of her prudence, lays her apprehensions asleep, and involves her in misery; misery the more inevitable because unsuspected For she who apprehends no danger, will not think it necessary to be always upon her guard; but will rather invite than avoid the ruin which coement will be infinitely dearer to her vanity than an avowed and authorised attachment; for one of these sentimental lovers will not scruple very seriously to assure a credulous girl, that her unparalleled merit entitles her to the adoration of the whole world, and that the universal ho more than the unavoidable tribute extorted by her charms No wonder then she should be easily prevailed on to believe, that an individual is captivated by perfections which ht enslave a million But she should remember, that he who endeavours to intoxicate her with adulation, intends one day most effectually to hun to pay hiality of praise, which he now appears to lavish with such thoughtless profusion, is, in fact, a sum oeconomically laid out to supply his future necessities: of this sum he keeps an exact estimate, and at some distant day promises himself the most exorbitant interest for it If he has address and conduct, and, the object of his pursuit much vanity, and some sensibility, he seldom fails of success; for so powerful will be his ascendancy over her mind, that she will soon adopt his notions and opinions Indeed, it is radually acquired them in her initiation into the sentinity and propriety, it is necessary she should entertain the most elevated ideas of disproportionate alliances, and disinterested love; and consider fortune, rank, and reputation, as ar prejudices
THE lover, deeply versed in all the obliquities of fraud, and skilled to wind himself into every avenue of the heart which indiscretion has left unguarded, soon discovers on which side it is most accessible He avails hie exactly consonant to her own ideas He attacks her with her oeapons, and opposes rhapsody to sentin a contempt for the paltry concerns of enerous a renunciation Every plea he artfully advances of his oorthiness, is considered by her as a fresh deratitude must answer And she makes it a point of honour to sacrifice to hiard
These professions of humility are the coenerosity the refuge of the rapacious And a its many smooth mischiefs, it is one of the sure and successful frauds of sentiid indifference to those external and pecuniary advantages, which it is its great and real object to obtain
A SENTIMENTAL girl very rarely entertains any doubt of her personal beauty; for she has been daily accustomed to contemplate it herself, and to hear of it from others She will not, therefore, be very solicitous for the confirmation of a truth so self-evident; but she suspects, that her pretensions to understanding are reedily devours every compliment offered to those perfections, which are less obvious and more refined She is persuaded, that men need only open their eyes to decide on her beauty, while it will be the ance of her admirer, that he can discern and flatter those qualities in her A man of the character here supposed, will easily insinuate hi foible, whichclue to a sentimental heart He will affect to overlook that beauty which attracts common eyes, and ensnares common hearts, while he will bestow the most delicate praises on the beauties of herthat she is superior to it
And when he tells her she hates flattery, She says she does, being then eneral, can end less delightfully than these sublime attachments, even where no acts of seduction were ever practised, but they are suffered, like ar catastrophe of e That wealth, which lately seemed to be looked on with ineffable contempt by the lover, now appears to be the principal attraction in the eyes of the husband; and he, who but a few short weeks before, in a transport of sentie maid, with no portion but her crook and her beauty, and that they ht spend their days in pastoral love and innocence, has now lost all relish for the Arcadian life, or any other life in which she must be his companion
ON the other hand, she as lately
An angel call'd, and angel-like ador'd,
is shocked to find herself at once stripped of all her celestial attributes This late divinity, who scarcely yielded to her sisters of the sky, now finds herself of less importance in the esteem of the er is she gratified with the tear of counterfeited passion, the sigh of dissee of preer is the altar of her vanity loaded with the oblations of fictitious fondness, the incense of falsehood, or the sacrifice of flattery--Her apotheosis is ended!--She feels herself degraded froes of a Goddess, to all the ihted wolected wife
Her faults, which were so lately overlooked, or mistaken for virtues, are now, as Cassius says, set in a note-book The passion, which was vowed eternal, lasted only a few short weeks; and the indifference, which was so far froain, that it was not so h the whole tiresome journey of their insipid, vacant, joyless existence
THUS much for the _completion_ of the senti, we shall find that a dainally turned by pernicious reading, and her insanity confirmed by imprudent friendshi+ps She never fails to select a beloved _confidante_ of her own turn and huh, if she can help it, not quite so handsome as herself A violent intie of sentiment, an intiht to the highest pitch by a secret and voluh they live in the same street, or perhaps in the same house This is the fuel which principally feeds and supplies the dangerous flame of sentie each other in the falsest notions ireat important business of human life, and describe all the other concerns of it as too low and paltry to s, and fit only to ear In these letters, faed, and faravated They are filled with vows of eternal a love But interjections and quotations are the principal eyric contained in theerated and excessive In a favourite, every frailty is heightened into a perfection, and in a foe degraded into a crime The dramatic poets, especially the most tender and romantic, are quoted in alht is forced to give up its natural and obvious , and with all the violence of misapplication, is coinary woe of the fair transcriber Alicia is not too mad for her heroics, nor Monimia too mild for her soft emotions