By JONATHAN SWIFT.
If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their
works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they
ever had any.
Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on
them, as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the
wall or the wainscot can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil,
make it look visible and agreeing with what he fancied.
Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of
public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road
by the quickness of their imagination. This I once said to my Lord
Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe that the clerks in his office
used a sort of ivory knife with a blunt edge to divide a sheet of
paper, which never failed to cut it even, only requiring a steady hand;
whereas if they should make use of a sharp penknife, the sharpness
would make it often go out of the crease and disfigure the paper.
“He who does not provide for his own house,” St. Paul says, “is worse
than an infidel;” and I think he who provides only for his own house is
just equal with an infidel.