[297] In 1709 the plague carried off over 40,000 persons in Dantzic.
[298] See Xenophon, "Mem.," Book II. chap. i. 21.
[299] _Cf._ Hesiod, "Works and Days," 289.
No. 98. [STEELE.
From _Tuesday, Nov. 22_, to _Thursday, Nov. 24, 1709_.
_From my own Apartment, Nov. 23._
I read the following letter, which was left for me this evening, with
very much concern for the lady's condition who sent it, who expresses
the state of her mind with great frankness, as all people ought who
talk to their physicians.
"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,
"Though you are stricken in years, and have had great experience
in the world, I believe you will say, there are not frequently
such difficult occasions to act in with decency as those wherein
I am entangled. I am a woman in love, and that you will allow to
be the most unhappy of all circumstances in human life: Nature
has formed us with a strong reluctance against owning such a
passion, and custom has made it criminal in us to make advances.
A gentleman, whom I will call Fabio, has the entire possession of
my heart. I am so intimately acquainted with him, that he makes
no scruple of communicating to me an ardent affection he has for
Cleora, a friend of mine, who also makes me her confidante. Most
part of my life I am in company with the one or the other, and
am always entertained with his passion, or her triumph. Cleora
is one of those ladies, who think they are virtuous, if they are
not guilty; and without any delicacy of choice, resolves to take
the best offer which shall be made to her. With this prospect she
puts off declaring herself in favour of Fabio, till she sees what
lovers will fall into her snares, which she lays in all public
places with all the art of gesture and glances. This resolution
she has herself told me. Though I love him better than life, I
would not gain him by betraying Cleora, or committing such a
trespass against modesty as letting him know myself that I love
him. You are an astrologer, what shall I do?
"DIANA DOUBTFUL."
This lady has said very justly, that the condition of a woman in love
is of all others the most miserable. Poor Diana! how must she be racked
with jealousy when Fabio talks of Cleora? how with indignation when
Cleora makes a property of Fabio? A female lover is in the condition
of a ghost, that wanders about its beloved treasure, without power
to speak until it is spoken to. I desire Diana to continue in this
circumstance; for I see an eye of comfort in her case, and will take
all proper measures to extricate her out of this unhappy game of
cross purposes. Since Cleora is upon the catch with her charms, and
has no particular regard for Fabio, I shall place a couple of special
fellows in her way, who shall both address to her, and have each a
better estate than Fabio. They are both already taken with her, and
are preparing for being of her retinue the ensuing winter. To women
of this worldly turn, as I apprehend Cleora to be, we must reckon
backward in our computation of merit; and when a fair lady thinks only
of making her spouse a convenient domestic, the notion of worth and
value is altered, and the lover is the more acceptable the less he is
considerable. The two I shall throw in the way of Cleora, are Orson
Thickett and Mr. Walter Wisdom. Orson is a huntsman, whose father's
death, and some difficulties about legacies, brought out of the woods
to town last November. He was at that time one of those country savages
who despise the softness they meet in town and court, and professedly
show their strength and roughness in every motion and gesture, in
scorn of our bowing and cringing. He was at his first appearance very
remarkable for that piece of good breeding peculiar to natural Britons,
to wit, defiance. He showed every one he met he was as good a man as
he. But in the midst of all his fierceness, he would sometimes attend
the discourse of a man of sense, and look at the charms of a beauty
with his eyes and mouth open. He was in this posture when, in the
beginning of last December, he was shot by Cleora from a side-box.[300]
From that moment he softened into humanity, forgot his dogs and horses,
and now moves and speaks with civility and address. What Wisdom, by
the death of an elder brother, came to a great estate, when he had
proceeded just far enough in his studies to be very impertinent, and at
the years when the law gives him possession of his fortune, and his own
constitution is too warm for the management of it. Orson is learning
to fence and dance, to please and fight for his mistress; and Walter
preparing fine horses, and a jingling chariot, to enchant her. All
persons concerned will appear at the next opera, where will begin the
wild-goose chase; and I doubt, Fabio will see himself so overlooked for
Orson or Walter, as to turn his eyes on the modest passion and becoming
languor in the countenance of Diana; it being my design to supply with
the art of love all those who preserve the sincere passion of it.
_Will's Coffee-house, Nov. 23._
An ingenious and worthy gentleman, my ancient friend,[301] fell into
discourse with me this evening upon the force and efficacy which the
writings of good poets have on the minds of their intelligent readers,
and recommended to me his sense of the matter, thrown together in the
following manner, which he desired me to communicate to the youth of
Great Britain in my essays; which I choose to do in his own words.
"I have always been of opinion," says he, "that virtue sinks deepest
into the heart of man when it comes recommended by the powerful charms
of poetry. The most active principle in our mind is the imagination:
to it a good poet makes his court perpetually, and by this faculty
takes care to gain it first. Our passions and inclinations come over
next; and our reason surrenders itself with pleasure in the end. Thus
the whole soul is insensibly betrayed into morality, by bribing the
fancy with beautiful and agreeable images of those very things that
in the books of the philosophers appear austere, and have at the best
but a kind of forbidden aspect. In a word, the poets do, as it were,
strew the rough paths of virtue so full of flowers, that we are not
sensible of the uneasiness of them, and imagine ourselves in the midst
of pleasures, and the most bewitching allurements, at the time we are
making a progress in the severest duties of life.
"All then agree, that licentious poems do of all writings soonest
corrupt the heart: and why should we not be as universally persuaded,
that the grave and serious performances of such as write in the
most engaging manner, by a kind of divine impulse, must be the most
effectual persuasives to goodness? If therefore I were blessed with a
son, in order to the forming of his manners (which is making him truly
my son) I should be continually putting into his hand some fine poet.
The graceful sentences and the manly sentiments so frequently to be met
with in every great and sublime writer, are, in my judgment, the most
ornamental and valuable furniture that can be for a young gentleman's
head; methinks they show like so much rich embroidery upon the brain.
Let me add to this, that humanity and tenderness (without which there
can be no true greatness in the mind) are inspired by the Muses in such
pathetical language, that all we find in prose authors towards the
raising and improving of these passions, is in comparison but cold, or
lukewarm at the best. There is besides a certain elevation of soul, a
sedate magnanimity, and a noble turn of virtue, that distinguishes the
hero from the plain, honest man, to which verse can only raise us. The
bold metaphors and sounding numbers, peculiar to the poets, rouse up
all our sleeping faculties, and alarm the whole powers of the soul,
much like that excellent trumpeter mentioned by Virgil:
'----_Quo non præstantior alter
Ære ciere viros, Martemque accendere cantu._'[302]
"I fell into this train of thinking this evening, upon reading
a passage in a masque written by Milton, where two brothers are
introduced seeking after their sister, whom they had lost in a dark
night and thick wood. One of the brothers is apprehensive lest the
wandering virgin should be overpowered with fears through the darkness
and loneliness of the time and place. This gives the other occasion to
make the following reflections, which, as I read them, made me forget
my age, and renewed in me the warm desires after virtue, so natural to
uncorrupted youth.
'_I do not think my sister so to seek,
Or so unprincipled in virtue's book,
And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,
As that the single want of light and noise
(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)
Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,
And put them into misbecoming plight.
Virtue could see to do what Virtue would,
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retirèd solitude:
Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon._'"[303]