ページの画像
PDF
ePub

Choose the best life, and custom will make it the most pleasant.

The prince, or the peer, who is surrounded by a numerous retinue, and whose luxury is supplied by the produce of every quarter of the globe, will do well to recollect that he is every day indebted to the accumulated labour of the lower classes of society, of which the poorest and the most unhappy peasant contributes his share.

'Tis better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glitt'ring grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.

Letters are the instruction of youth, and delight of old age; an ornament in prosperity; in adversity, a comfort and relief; at home always agreeable, abroad never troublesome; in town or country, night or day, at every hour, in every place, the sweetest happiness of life.

As a field, though fertile, cannot be fruitful without culture, so cannot the mind without learning; for each without the other is insufficient: but the culture of the mind is philosophy.

It is the duty of a young man to revere his seniors, and to select the

best and most esteemed of them, on whose advice and authority he may depend; for the inexperience of early youth should be fixed and governed by the experience of age.

The accident of birth is surely no personal merit to the possessor; and too true it is, that the pure fountain of hereditary honour often degenerates into a polluted channel. But the founder of his own dignities creates himself that pedigree, which, according to their conduct, may either shame or ennoble his posterity.

SIMONS THE MILLER.

AVARICE frequently counteracts its own end; by grasping too much it loses all.

HOME'S SKETCHES, VOL. I.

Hence almost every crime, nor do we find
That any passion of the human mind

So oft has plung'd the sword, or drugg'd the bowl,
As AVARICE, that tyrant of the soul.

For he that will be rich, brooks no delay,
But drives o'er all, and takes the shortest way:
What law, or fear, or shame, can e'er restrain
The greedy wretch in full pursuit of gain.

FROM JUVENAL, SAT. XIV.

If

you desire to be wealthy, be

more eager to save money than to

acquire it.

Eagerness to acquire

money produces Avarice, and Ava

rice is the parent of the worst vices that corrupt the heart, degrade the mind, and place the soul in a fearful state of peril. When gossiping people say, money is to be obtained here, and money is to be obtained there, take no notice ;-mind your own business ;-stay where you are, and by honest and steady industry secure all you can, nor let the temptation of glittering but vain shadows induce you, for a single moment, to let go the substance which you already possess. Should you hear that your neighbour has picked up a purse of gold in the street, do not run forth into the same street, looking about you in order to pick up such another. The purse of gold is not his who

« 前へ次へ »