_His hands in Askthorpe and his thoughts in Thefton_,
so the busybody’s thoughts are at one and the same time in the houses of
the rich and the hovels of the poor, in the courts of kings and the
chambers of the newly-wed. He searches into everybody’s
business—business of strangers, and business of potentates. Nor is his
search without danger. If one were to take a taste of aconite because he
was inquisitive as to its properties, he would find that he had killed
the learner before he got his lesson. So those who pry into the troubles
of the [Sidenote: B] great destroy themselves before discovering what
they seek. If any one is not satisfied with the beams which the sun
lavishes so abundantly upon all, but audaciously insists upon gazing
unabashed at the orb itself and probing the light to its heart, the
result is blindness. It was therefore wise of Philippides, the comic
poet, when King Lysimachus once asked him, ‘What can I give you of
mine?’ to reply, ‘Anything, Sire, but your secrets.’ The finest and most
pleasant aspects of royalty are those displayed outwardly—its banquets,
wealth, pomps and shows, graces and favours. But if a king has any
secret, keep away from it and leave it alone. A king does not conceal
his [Sidenote: C] joy when prosperous, nor his laughter when jocose, nor
his intention to do a kindness or confer a boon. When he hides a thing,
when he is glum, unsmiling, unapproachable, it is time for alarm. It
means that he has been storing up anger, and that it is festering; or
that he is sullenly meditating a severe punishment; or that he is
jealous of his wife, or suspicious of his son, or distrustful of a
friend. Run, run from that cloud which is gathering so black! You cannot
possibly miss the thunder and lightning, when the matter which is now a
secret bursts out in storm.
How, then, are we to escape this vice? By turning our inquisitiveness—as
we have said—the other way round, and, as far as possible, directing our
minds to better and more interesting objects. If you are to pry, pry
into questions [Sidenote: D] connected with sky, earth, air, or sea. You
are by nature fond of looking either at little things or at big things.
If at big things, apply your curiosity to the sun; ask where he sets and
whence he rises. Inquire into the changes of the moon, as if she were a
human being. Ask where she loses so much of her light, and whence she
gets it back; how
_Once dim, she first comes forth and makes
Her young face beauteous, gathering to the full,
And, when her greatest splendours she hath shown,
Fades out, and passes into naught again._
These, too, are secrets—the secrets of Nature; but Nature has [Sidenote:
E] no grievance against those who find them out. Are the big things
beyond you? Then pry into the smaller ones. Ask how it is that some
plants are always flourishing and green, proudly displaying their wealth
at every season, while others are at one moment as good as these, but at
another have squandered their abundance all at once, like some human
spendthrift, and are left bare and beggared. Why, again, do some plants
produce elongated fruits, some angular, some round and globelike?
But perhaps you will have no curiosity for such concerns, [Sidenote: F]
because there is nothing wrong about them. Well, if inquisitiveness
absolutely must be always browsing and passing its time among things
sordid, like a maggot among dead matter, let us introduce it to history
and story, and supply it with bad things in abundance and without stint.
For there it will find
_Fallings of men and spurnings-off of life_,
seductions of women, assaults by slaves, slanderings of friends,
concoctions of poisons, envies, jealousies, shipwrecks of homes,
overthrows of rulers. Take your fill, enjoy yourself, and cause no
annoyance or pain to any of those with whom you come in contact.
Apparently, however, inquisitiveness finds no pleasure in scandals which
are stale; it wants them hot and fresh. And [Sidenote: 518] while it
enjoys the spectacle of a novel tragedy, it takes no sort of interest in
the comedy or more cheerful side of life. Consequently the busybody
lends but a careless and indifferent ear to the account of a wedding, a
sacrifice, or a complimentary ‘farewell’. He says he has already heard
most of the details, and urges the narrator to cut them short or omit
them. But if any one will sit by him and tell him the news about the
corruption of a girl or the unfaithfulness of a wife or an impending
action at law or a quarrel between brothers, there is no sleepiness or
hurry about him, but
_More words still doth he ask, and proffers his ears to receive
them._