They who frequent taverns and gaming-houses, and keep bad company,
should not wonder if they are reduced, in a very small time, to penury
and want. The wretched young fellows, who once addict themselves to such
a scandalous kind of life, scarce think of, or attend to, any one thing
besides. They seem to have nothing else in their heads, but how they may
squander what they have got, and where they may get more when that is
gone. They do not make the same use of their reason that other people
do; but, like the jaundiced eye, view every thing in that false light in
which their distemper and debauchery represent it. The Young Man in the
fable gives us a pretty example of this; he sees a Swallow in the midst
of winter, and instead of being surprised at it, as a very irregular
and extraordinary thing, concludes from thence that it is summer, as if
he had never thought before about the season. Well, the result of this
wise conclusion is of a piece with the conclusion itself; if it is
summer, he shall not want so many clothes, therefore he sells them: for
what?--More money to squander away; as if (had his observation been
just) summer would have lasted all the year round. But the true result
and conclusion of all this is--when both his money and clothes are
irrecoverably gone, he comes to his right senses; is ready to perish
with hunger, to starve with cold, and to tear his own flesh with remorse
and vexation at his former stupidity.