prodigality, and falsehood, are that man’s principal characteristics--a
combination of inconsistent vices which make him rather a petty fool
than a sensible knave, to which latter distinction he seems to aspire.
To day he will clutch a shilling with a grasp so powerful that nothing
can extort it, and to-morrow he will contract a debt to gratify the
most paltry vice that may move him. Should he happen to get into your
debt upon such an occasion, he will not be at a loss for lies to evade
your demand. When Mareschal de Rochelaure was accused of taking part
with the Duke of Mayenne, he answered the king that he “did not follow
the duke, but his own money, for his debt would be but in a desperate
condition, if he did not stick close to his debtor.” Your tenacity
in sticking close to that man would only extort from him the same
falsehood a thousand times, and if detected and reproached, he would
coolly ask you whether you were so cursed a fool as to believe him! He
never enjoys a hearty laugh, save when he has duped some unsuspecting
individual who may have been induced to confide in him.----You need not
be surprised at his quick and sudden disappearance around the corner;
for yonder comes his especial friend, the collector, who has caused
him to tell more lies than a dozen of satan’s imps could register in a
year, and make more clumsy dodges than could be chronicled in a volume
as large as a quarto Bible. Of all dreaded things in our place, that
collector is the most dreaded. He is a clever, sociable, and amusing
fellow, who first puts you in a happy humor by his joviality, and
then draws the money from your purse before you are aware of it. He
was quite a favorite a few years ago, his society being universally
courted, but since he has engaged in his present employment every body
dodges and runs from him. My dear sir, if you wish to preserve your
friendly intercourse with a neighborhood, never become a collector;
but should you ever be beset with more friends than you know what to
do with, I know of no honorable process by which you can so easily get
rid of them as by commencing this troublesome business. However brave
a people may be, reflected Peter, they have never yet had the courage
boldly to face a bill, and many who had laughed danger in the face,
skulked like cowards into the darkest corner upon beholding the simple
shadow of a creditor.
You observe yonder lynx-eyed individual moving slowly along. He sees
all that is passing within vision around him. His two eyes seem to
answer the purposes of a hundred, and are constantly in motion.
Although everything within their range falls under their quick and
penetrating scrutiny, they behold nothing to admire or to make him
glad. They might as well gaze upon an utter blank, and certainly he
would experience more comfort should they recognise only a wide and
dismal waste instead of prosperity and happiness. He is as despicable
a victim of envy as the world ever saw, which simply moves him to hate
the success of those around him, and repine at their happiness. He can
only find gratification in their distress and joy in their calamities.
A tinge of envy, however much descried, is sometimes productive of
good results, for I have known it to prove an incentive to exertion
where all else had failed; but when permanently retained, it becomes
the powerful and fertile cause of hypocricies, lies, deceits,
treacheries, slanders, annihilating every good quality in nature, and
yet unsatisfied, still adding fuel to its evil ones. That man would
not hesitate to blast the qualities of your brain, merely because he
cannot bear your superiority; nor would he pause to ruin you in your
possessions, although he should not derive the least profit from it.
Whilst, however, he discovers pleasure in the ruin alike of those
above and below him, he finds a vulture in his evil passion, which,
“like iron over-run with rust, not only defiles, but destroys himself
continually.” It is well, reflected Peter, that passions which can
only experience delight in the evil fate of others, should likewise
make a meal upon their possessor, and that whilst he smiles upon the
calamities of the unfortunate, his smile should be but an expression of
his inward torture.
There you may recognise a bald-pated knave, whose age, instead of
preserving him from the snares of the young, only seems to encourage
and embolden him the more. He is in company with his son-in-law, to
whom he once refused to give his daughter’s hand in marriage, for
reasons which he did not care to make known either to her or his
household. The vigilance and curiosity of those less interested,
however, soon succeeded in ascertaining them, and the discovery
afforded no little amusement at his perplexity. The chief priests and
scribes were not in a greater quandary when they had the choice to say
“yea,” and be convicted of their baseness, or “nay,” and be stoned by
the people. He had too often met the aspirant to his daughter’s hand
at places of resort where none of our community who values his moral
character is likely to go. Peter was somewhat at a loss here, yet he
could not help reflecting that the father who visits places of crime,
is in a very ridiculous dilemma when compelled to make use of his
personal knowledge and his own dishonor to preserve the reputation of
his family.
See there--worthy patterns of a gentleman and lady. He is an honest
and faithful husband, and she an affectionate and virtuous wife. They
love wisely and well, live happily in each other, and are models to
all who know them. Make them your friends, for the very atmosphere in
which they move is worth more than all the attention a thousand such
as have yet passed us could bestow. The lord who loves his lady truly,
and ever keeps unbroken the faith he has plighted to her, becomes as
much an example to the world as a joy to his wife; and the lady who
never forgets her affection and allegiance to her lord, is so much
superior to the common woman that to him she always seems an angel out
of Paradise. “An honest man,” said old Simonides, “can have nothing in
this world better than a good wife,” and surely an honest woman can
ask no higher blessing than a good husband. You see such in those two,
and may well seek their friendship and profit by their excellencies of
character and correctness of habits. Ah! thought Peter, a happy oasis
in the desert of matrimonial life, still inspiring reverence for the
institution, though it be made the fickle plaything of the world, its
common game of heedless chance and hazard.
There, sir, in that old man you see an impersonation of prejudice, a
quality not inaptly defined as “the spider of the mind, filling it with
cobwebs.” His opinion once set, no power on earth can change it, and
beware that you press not too closely, lest he adopt the convincing
logic of Frederick the Great, who, it is said, when argument failed
to enforce his convictions, had recourse to “kicking the shins of his
opponent.” Guide his thoughts into one channel and they will follow
it, though it should lead him to the devil. His prejudices frequently
render him as obstinate as a mule, and as often not as wise. He still
stands where his fathers stood before him, and joined to the idols
and follies of a past age, he has no sympathies with the present. If
he thinks at all, he does so simply to fasten upon his mind the more
his cherished errors, and your only policy is to “let him alone.”
Never, reflected Peter, undertake to straighten the crooked nature
of the prejudiced man, for to him all your facts are nothing but a
stumbling-block, and all your reasons simple foolishness.
Yonder lame individual furnishes a story well illustrating the
fickleness of the human heart. Though we may appear to be enraptured
with a single feeling, the intervention of a trifling circumstance not
unfrequently entirely relieves us of it. That gentleman courted a fair
young maiden, and eventually his attentions resulted in a betrothal. An
unfortunate accident soon after deprived him of a leg, and being thus
deformed, his love required little time to extinguish her affection,
and accordingly broke her faith. She had bargained more for a solid man
than a sound head or heart, and being disabled from complying with the
conditions, he was politely rejected. Thus good luck often springs from
misfortune, and he gained greatly by the loss of a limb. What a world
of cripples, thought Peter, this would suddenly become, could all who
desired it be relieved by the loss of a leg of the ills from which his
fortunate misfortune preserved him.
Turn your eyes to the left, and you may behold a fanciful pair
approaching towards us. That pursy and apparently very jovial
fellow--mine host of yonder inn--keeps a resort for gentility, and
under the cover of respectability, sends forth unnumbered evils to
infest and afflict the community. The practices of his house flourish
admirably under the beauty of a fashionable exterior; yet the
pestiferous rottenness within could not withstand the eye of modern
justice for a moment if disguised only in rags. Public morality in
the case where gold is concerned, is quite a different thing from
that wherein simple copper is brought into the scale. Respectable
crime easily escapes the keen vigilance of those who guard the public
virtue, whilst we are loud in their praises when some poor, abandoned,
God-forsaken wretch is hurried to his doom amid the imposing show of
a high morality and an even-handed justice. That man may lavishly
spread his fearful evils--the only things with which men appear to be
truly bountiful--with unchecked freedom; and whenever they press too
heavily upon us, a few plaintive groans will soon arouse the slumbering
sentinels of the law. Powerful justice will sound its signal,
triumphantly make a brutal “descent” upon some paltry hut, and drag its
starving inmates to the slaughter. Well, has not Carneades pronounced
his definitive sentence that “justice is folly;” and what matters
it whether I offend, and some more unfortunate creature pays the
penalty, so that justice is appeased? It must have victims, and fate,
ill-fortune, and poverty, have not been miserly in providing them.
Thus it is never at a loss for the means wherewith to preserve that
reputation which Tully thought so essential “that even those who lived
by outrage and villany could not subsist without at least its shadow
or semblance.” That fortunate knave may prosper in his practices, and
though their fatal consequences may sometimes arouse our vengeance,
there never will be wanting those whose immolation will allay it. His
tall, robust companion is a character--a perfect original. He will hug,
and pet, and caress you with the tenderness of a captivated maiden, all
for a picayune; and when he has thus fondled it out of your possession,
having no prospect of realizing more, he would as lovingly kick you out
of doors for a ha’penny--thus making you as profitable a customer as
the circumstances could possibly admit. Headlong and heedless withal,
his actions ever in advance of his thoughts, he is a mass of locomotive
matter, tumbling about on the earth, with no idea to accomplish, no
purpose to fulfil. This is not the only one, reflected Peter, who has,
by some comical dispensation of nature, been placed outside of his
orbit, as if it designed to exhibit what a fickle whirligig can be made
of man by unhinging his directing power.
Look to that building yonder. The gentleman who has just entered it
is a modern reformer. He railed against the evil habits of men, and
the sinful and dishonest practices of the world, until sent to the
penitentiary for having attached another man’s name to a small piece
of bankable paper. The imitation was good, but unfortunately for him
history had chronicled the adventures of Saavadra, the famous and
somewhat romantic nuncio of Portugal, and having failed, in his mania
for improvement, to improve upon this noted forger, he atoned for his
unsuccessful attempt by faithfully serving the full period of his
sentence. He is now riding his hobby-horse of “Reform” again, with even
greater boldness than before. This may be owing to the extra courage
acquired, or perhaps to the change effected in the times, during the
period which he devoted to solitary meditations. The sledge-hammer mode
of reform has since accomplished marvels and become highly fashionable;
but it is now greatly feared that many too charitable fellows, in
their exceedingly magnanimous efforts to drive the erring back from
the brink of perdition, will stand a very excellent chance of tumbling
in themselves. He has abandoned the task of persuading for the more
exalted one of coercing, which may prove more profitable; but should
he branch out a second time upon his own responsibility, it is hoped
he may realize his ideas of improvement by choosing some species of
roguery wherein he shall leave no historical example unexcelled. It is
no uncommon occurrence of the ludicrous in life, reflected Peter, to
see those in whom the ordinary thief could not confide, suddenly become
reformers, and find patrons for their presumption and fools to regard
them as patterns of moral propriety.
Note that gentleman and lady opposite. He is her husband. Having seen
his wife in dishabille the morning after his wedding, and meeting
her upon his return home at noon arrayed for public inspection, it
is currently reported, he found her so much improved and beautified
that he mistook her for a stranger, and absolutely asked her of the
whereabout of his spouse. Nature has been exceedingly kind after all.
If it has ordained that youth should fade, it has generously furnished
the material whereby a century can be made to assume the appearance of
a score. What matters it that old Father Cyprian thought all change the
work of satan, and pronounced it running counter to the will of God
to paint or black the hair, because he had read, “Thou canst not make
one hair white or black?” Who cares for the declaration of Tertullian,
that “it is the devil that mounts the actors on their buskins, in order
to make Jesus Christ a liar, who has said, that no one can add one
cubit to his stature?” They were both wofully mistaken, and our ladies
have most triumphantly refuted their errors, by silently exhibiting
that a hundred Tophets could not supply imps enough to make half the
changes and additions which they daily parade before our eyes. It is
marvellous, reflected Peter, what artificial charms can be conjured
up by those who properly understand the art of beauty; and why should
they fret and complain against fate, when, with paint, powder, and
cotton, they are constantly proving that their troublesome deficiencies
were simply meant as so many kindnesses, by leaving them at liberty to
manufacture whatever hue and dimensions that might best please their
fancies?
The young lady and gentleman who have just passed by, seem to have
arrested your attention. They are intimate acquaintances, and it is
conjectured they will be something more in due time. You heard her
indignant remark upon the dissoluteness of that young man yonder, a
distant and ill-starred connexion of hers, and her emphatic wish for an
edict providing for the decapitation of all such reckless creatures.
Her creed, my dear sir, if impartially carried into effect, would
scarcely permit a head to remain solidly upon the shoulders of a single
citizen in the country; and her companion, though he does share her
virtuous affections, would be one of the first to despair for his
own. If shrewder and more cunning, he certainly is no better than the
individual who has elicited her censure, though she knows it not.
Her ignorance is blissful, however deceptive. Should some superhuman
agency, thought Peter, suddenly reveal the truthful characters of
Cupid’s followers, how many confiding maidens would be startled at
having admired the most knavish deceivers, and how many foolish swains
would stand aghast with horror at the dishonest treachery of their
lady-loves!
In that young man approaching this way, you may recognise somewhat of
a philosopher. You might as well attempt to scale the mountains of the
moon as to persuade him that there was much real virtue in the world.
“We are honest,” he argues, “from convenience or policy, and apparently
moral from a fear of society, which has established certain rules,
and is given to certain general opinions, the violations of which are
always attended with some difficulties or vexations. The old Romans
had their censors, whose chief business it was to inspect the morals
of the citizens, and could we, by following some such example, spread
out before us the hidden conduct and practices of each individual, the
little of real conscience and truth, substantial honesty and morality,
we should be able to detect, might tempt us to abandon our moral code
entirely. Or could we, by a glance, penetrate the past lives and
habits, and scrutinize the secret sins of all whom we encounter, what
a terrible blushing there would be in the world, and how many would
laugh in each other’s faces! Many whose apparent honesty now claims
your respect, unable any longer to disguise their hypocrisy, would only
make merry over the numerous counterparts of themselves with whom they
should constantly come in contact. The virtuous Thrasea spoke but the
truth in his favorite maxim, that ‘he who suffers himself to hate vice
will hate mankind;’ for, although all must pretend to virtue from a
kind of social necessity, it is a garment which they cast aside without
a pause when rendered safe from detection, ever faithfully illustrating
the saying of Agathias, that ‘virtue upon necessity is just as long
lived as the fear that occasions it.’ The world seems desperately
determined to vindicate what its Saviour has affirmed, and no prophecy
promises to be more fully realized than his sorrowful declaration that
‘narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find
it.’” Such is a taste of the young man’s opinions, in which he is so
firmly rooted, that should you persuade him that the fate of the town
depended upon ten righteous men to be found within it, he would at once
take to his heels, and never pause until he was far out of danger.
Whether there is not too much of correctness in his melancholy views,
you must determine for yourself.--No very difficult matter, reflected
Peter, amid the many unpleasant examples that are destined daily to
bring unwelcome aid to your judgment, and exhibit to your gaze so many
who seem but to struggle the hardest to obtain the greatest curses.
You will pardon the interruption, said the stranger, but my attention
has been arrested by the counterfeit manikin suspended by the neck to
the branch of yonder tree, and my curiosity excited to know what fickle
whim or fancy placed it there. Its import, replied the other, not
endeavoring to restrain his merriment, is very significant. The female
occupants of the adjoining houses have for some time been engaged in a
bitter quarrel. The intolerable scolding propensities of one of them,
common report avers, caused her husband to resort to that effective
mode of obtaining relief. The cunning of the other, in the progress of
the quarrel, has devised that silent but expressive expedient as an
annoyance and remembrancer to her enemy, and by replacing it as often
as it is destroyed, promises fair to be the conqueror in the end.
Here you may recognise one of those silly or knavish creatures, in whom
it is difficult to tell whether the mule or the monkey predominates.
He knows but of one vice in the world, and it is the subject of his
constant denunciations. He is ceaseless in his praises of honesty, and
as “opportunity makes the thief,” according to the proverb, he will
probably preserve his reputation as long as he remains amongst those
who know him. It is given as a rule, and in case you encounter him it
may prove of service, always to mistrust the man who too much prides
himself upon possessing a certain quality, and to be suspicious of
him who constantly deals in vehement complaints against a particular
vice. Such are generally weak in what they boast themselves strong, and
their darts are frequently directed against the very fault peculiar to
themselves. It is so, thought Peter, even with the great world, which
ever descries its own practices, and yet tenaciously continues in them,
as if loathe to part with such excellent causes to elicit its censure,
and such admirable escape-valves through which its wrath may freely
ooze itself away.
There is an amusing and withal pitiable victim of a mistake. He was a
lodger at a public inn, and rising early one morning, he was mistaken
for a burglar, and received a terrible beating from his hasty and
suspicious host. To redress this injury, he flew to the law--a very
singular power to decide upon a mistake. The landlord, not thus to be
outdone, brought a more serious charge against him in retaliation. The
blind Goddess, whose determinations were ascertained by two intelligent
juries, very magnanimously gave each the benefit of the mistake, and
both found comfortable lodgings in the county prison. There, thought
Peter, they had leisure at least to cool their sanguine tempers, and
reflect upon the frequent tendency of the merest trifles to grow into
importance.
Opposite, you may see a genuine specimen of what the world calls
a “successful fellow.” He claims to be a proper person to reside
upon this especial sphere of God’s creation, and bases his peculiar
fitness upon two facts: he is not encumbered with an extra amount
of conscience, nor is he restrained by any settled principles of
virtue--two things, he avers, not well calculated to promote prosperity
in a world where the right and wrong of human actions are so generally
estimated by profit and loss. He will never suffer on account of
possessing too much of either, both of which he regards as certain
roads to poverty, and consequently loss of the world’s esteem. To
persuade you that he is doing you a service whilst plundering you, he
thinks the perfection of skill and ingenuity. Should he ever tempt you
to enter into any of his promising schemes, beware of his plausible
representations, for you may swear they only conceal a design to pick
your pocket with your own consent. No very uncommon occurrence,
reflected Peter, in a world where prosperity is made to depend upon a
cunning address, and where a shrewd head is so much preferred to an
honest heart.
Approaching us, you may see a specimen of that sad human depravity
so frequently encountered, and whom the good morals of the virtuous
public have generally indulged under the plea of necessity. She was
unfortunate recently in disturbing the peace of a very respectable
locality, and having thus over-stepped the bounds of that necessity
which tolerated her, she fell into the meshes of the law, and gave us
rather a funny illustration of the melancholy effect misfortune has
upon friends. Her most punctual visitors, whom she had always received
so very graciously, perhaps having a view to their circumstances and
positions in society, now repulsed her the most roughly, and gave
free vent to their virtuous indignation when she presumed to solicit
_their_ aid. After experiencing this ingratitude and baseness, she
became seriously ill from the excitement; and despairing of being
again restored, her repentant fears set her raving as if mad. Her
disconnected revelations were watched with wonderful anxiety, affording
great amusement to some, and as greatly exciting the fears of others;
but when she expressed it as a Christian duty that a _very_ minute
account of her ill-spent life should be given, she caused more genuine
consternation than could have followed a siege of the town. The fearful
disclosures of a few dozen of her kind, reflected Peter, in each city
and town of the country, specifically setting forth the names of their
visitors and lovers, could create more confusion than attended the
marches of Alexander, and cause a panic perhaps only equalled by that
of ancient Rome when invaded by the barbarians.
Turn, however, from this unwelcome picture, and behold that fancy young
man yonder. He is too ignorant to be of any service in the position of
life to which he pretends, and too much inflated with his own conceit
to render himself useful in a different calling. Between these not
uncommon qualities, he manages to trudge along, cheating his tailor,
defrauding his landlord, and swindling all who may be so unfortunate as
to mistake his appearance for respectability and his pretensions for
honesty. How such palpable fools manage to maintain their stupidity
upon the plunder of more sensible knaves, is one of those inexplicable
mysteries of life which few have attempted to determine. We have
repudiated the rule of Aristotle, that only those employments are to
be reputed mean which render either the body or the soul unfit for the
practice of virtue; and by making certain pursuits a test of social
standing, and the neglect of all, a sure index of respectability,
we have admirably succeeded in rearing a brood of vagabonds whom it
would now be ungenerous to neglect. Thus, perhaps, they owe more to
our indulgence and kindness than we are willing to acknowledge, being
content to endure an occasional swindle, and in this silent manner
atone somewhat for an evil which we have ourselves created. It is so
much easier, reflected Peter, to tolerate some errors than to reform
them, and we are happily prepared to submit to their inconveniences if
they will only do us the kindness a little to tickle our vanity.