SUCH is the tenderness or infirmity of many
minds, that when any affliction oppresses them,
they have immediate recourse to lamentation and
complaint, which, though it can only be allowed
reasonable when evils admit of remedy, and then only
when addressed to those from whom the remedy is
expected, yet seems even in hopeless and incurable
distresses to be natural, since those by whom it is
not indulged, imagine that they give a proof of
extraordinary fortitude by suppressing it.
I am one of those who, with the Sancho of Cervantes,
leave to higher characters the merit of suffering
in silence, and give vent without scruple to
any sorrow that swells in my heart. It is therefore
to me a severe aggravation of a calamity, when it is
such as in the common opinion will not justify the
acerbity of exclamation, or support the solemnity of
vocal grief. Yet many pains are incident to a man of
delicacy, which the unfeeling world cannot be
persuaded to pity, and which, when they are separated
from their peculiar and personal circumstances, will
never be considered as important enough to claim
attention, or deserve redress.
Of this kind will appear to gross and vulgar
apprehensions, the miseries which I endured in a morning
visit to Prospero, a man lately raised to wealth by a
lucky project, and too much intoxicated by sudden
elevation, or too little polished by thought and
conversation, to enjoy his present fortune with elegance
and decency.
We set out in the world together; and for a long
time mutually assisted each other in our exigencies,
as either happened to have money or influence
beyond his immediate necessities. You know that
nothing generally endears men so much as participation
of dangers and misfortunes; I therefore always
considered Prospero as united with me in the
strongest league of kindness, and imagined that our
friendship was only to be broken by the hand of
death. I felt at his sudden shoot of success an honest
and disinterested joy; but as I want no part of his
superfluities, am not willing to descend from that
equality in which we hitherto have lived.
Our intimacy was regarded by me as a dispensation
from ceremonial visits; and it was so long before
I saw him at his new house, that he gently
complained of my neglect, and obliged me to come on
a day appointed. I kept my promise, but found that
the impatience of my friend arose not from any desire
to communicate his happiness, but to enjoy his
superiority.
When I told my name at the door, the footman
went to see if his master was at home, and, by the
tardiness of his return, gave me reason to suspect
that time was taken to deliberate. He then informed
me, that Prospero desired my company, and shewed
the staircase carefully secured by mats from the
pollution of my feet. The best apartments were
ostentatiously set open, that I might have a distant view
of the magnificence which I was not permitted to
approach; and my old friend receiving me with all
the insolence of condescension at the top of the stairs,
conducted me to a back room, where he told me he
always breakfasted when he had not great company.
On the floor where we sat lay a carpet covered
with a cloth, of which Prospero ordered his servant
to lift up a corner, that I might contemplate the
brightness of the colours, and the elegance of the
texture, and asked me whether I had ever seen any
thing so fine before? I did not gratify his folly with
any outcries of admiration, but coldly bade the
footman let down the cloth.
We then sat down, and I began to hope that
pride was glutted with persecution, when Prospero
desired that I would give the servant leave to adjust
the cover of my chair, which was slipt a little
aside, to shew the damask; he informed me that he
had bespoke ordinary chairs for common use, but had
been disappointed by his tradesman. I put the chair
aside with my foot, and drew another so hastily,
that I was entreated not to rumple the carpet.
Breakfast was at last set, and as I was not willing
to indulge the peevishness that began to seize me,
I commended the tea: Prospero then told me, that
another time I should taste his finest sort, but that
he had only a very small quantity remaining, and
reserved it for those whom he thought himself
obliged to treat with particular respect.
While we were conversing upon such subjects as
imagination happened to suggest, he frequently
digressed into directions to the servant that waited,
or made a slight inquiry after the jeweller or
silversmith; and once, as I was pursuing an argument
with some degree of earnestness, he started from
his posture of attention, and ordered, that if lord
Lofty called on him that morning, he should be
shown into the best parlour.
My patience was yet not wholly subdued. I was
willing to promote his satisfaction, and therefore
observed that the figures on the china were
eminently pretty. Prospero had now an opportunity of
calling for his Dresden china, which, says he, I
always associate with my chased tea-kettle. The cups
were brought; I once resolved not to have looked
upon them, but my curiosity prevailed. When I had
examined them a little, Prospero desired me to set
them down, for they who were accustomed only to
common dishes, seldom handled china with much
care. You will, I hope, commend my philosophy,
when I tell you that I did not dash his baubles to
the ground.
He was now so much elevated with his own
greatness, that he thought some humility necessary to
avert the glance of envy, and therefore told me,
with an air of soft composure, that I was not to
estimate life by external appearance, that all these
shining acquisitions had added little to his happiness,
that he still remembered with pleasure the
days in which he and I were on the level, and had
often, in the moment of reflection, been doubtful,
whether he should lose much by changing his condition
for mine.
I began now to be afraid lest his pride should, by
silence and submission be emboldened to insults
that could not easily be borne, and therefore coolly
considered, how I should repress it without such
bitterness of reproof as I was yet unwilling to use.
But he interrupted my meditation, by asking leave
to be dressed, and told me, that he had promised
to attend some ladies in the park, and, if I was
going the same way, would take me in his chariot. I
had no inclination to any other favours, and therefore
left him without any intention of seeing him
again, unless some misfortune should restore his
understanding.