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But these instances are memorable, because they are rare. The friendship which
is to be practiced or expected by common mortals, must take its rise from
mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.
Many accidents therefore may happen by which the ardor of kindness will be
abated, without criminal baseness or contemptible inconstancy on either part.
To give pleasure is not always in our power; and little does he know himself
who believes that he can be always able to receive it.
Those who would gladly pass their days together may be separated by the
different course of their affairs; and friendship, like love, is destroyed by long
absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions. What we have
missed long enough to want it, we value more when it is regained; but that
which has been lost till it is forgotten, will be found at last with little gladness,
and with still less if a substitute has supplied the place. A man deprived of the
companion to whom he used to open his bosom, and with whom he shared the
hours of leisure and merriment, feels the day at first hanging heavy on him; his
difficulties oppress, and his doubts distract him; he sees time come and go
without his wonted gratification, and all is sadness within, and solitude about
him.
But this uneasiness never lasts long; necessity produces expedients, new
amusements are discovered, and new conversation is admitted.
A dispute begun in jest upon a subject which a moment before was on both
parts regarded with careless indifference, is continued by the desire of
conquest, till vanity kindles into rage, and opposition rankles into enmity.
Against this hasty mischief, I know not what security can be obtained; men will
be sometimes surprised into quarrels; and though they might both haste into
reconciliation, as soon as their tumult had subsided, yet two minds will seldom
be found together, which can at once subdue their discontent, or immediately
enjoy the sweets of peace without remembering the wounds of the conflict.
Friendship has other enemies. Suspicion is always hardening the cautious, and
disgust repelling the delicate. Very slender differences will sometimes part
those whom long reciprocation of civility or beneficence has united. Lonelove
and Ranger retired into the country to enjoy the company of each other, and
returned in six weeks, cold and petulant; Ranger's pleasure was to walk in the
fields, and Lonelove's to sit in a bower; each had complied with the other in his
turn, and each was angry that compliance had been exacted.
The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased
by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal. Those who
are angry may be reconciled; those who have been injured may receive a
recompense: but when the desire of pleasing and willingness to be pleased is
silently diminished, the renovation of friendship is hopeless; as, when the vital
powers sink into languor, there is no longer any use of the physician.
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No. 53. Mischief of Good Company:~
TO THE IDLER.
Sir,
I have a wife that keeps good company. You know that the word good varies its
meaning according to the value set upon different qualities in different places.
To be a good man in a college, is to be learned; in a camp, to be brave; and in
the city, to be rich. By good company in the place which I have the misfortune to
inhabit, we understand not only those from whom any good can be learned,
whether wisdom or virtue; or by whom any good can be conferred, whether
profit or reputation:—good company is the company of those whose birth is
high, and whose riches are great; or of those whom the rich and noble admit to
familiarity.
But slight causes produce great effects. All my happiness has been destroyed by
change of place: virtue is too often merely local; in some situations the air
diseases the body, and in others poisons the mind. Being obliged to remove my
habitation, I was led by my evil genius to a convenient house in a street where
many of the nobility reside. We had scarcely ranged our furniture, and aired our
rooms, when my wife began to grow discontented, and to wonder what the
neighbours would think, when they saw so few chairs and chariots at her door.
Her acquaintance, who came to see her from the quarter that we had left,
mortified her without design, by continual inquiries about the ladies whose
houses they viewed from our windows. She was ashamed to confess that she
had no intercourse with them, and sheltered her distress under general
answers, which always tended to raise suspicion that she knew more than she
would tell; but she was often reduced to difficulties, when the course of talk
introduced questions about the furniture or ornaments of their houses, which,
when she could get no intelligence, she was forced to pass slightly over, as
things which she saw so often that she never minded them.
To all these vexations she was resolved to put an end, and redoubled her visits
to those few of her friends who visited those who kept good company; and, if
ever she met a lady of quality, forced herself into notice by respect and
assiduity. Her advances were generally rejected; and she heard them, as they
went down stairs, talk how some creatures put themselves forward.
She was not discouraged, but crept forward from one to another; and, as
perseverance will do great things, sapped her way unperceived, till,
unexpectedly, she appeared at the card-table of lady Biddy Porpoise, a
lethargick virgin of seventy-six, whom all the families in the next square visited
very punctually when she was not at home.
This was the first step of that elevation to which my wife has since ascended.
For five months she had no name in her mouth but that of lady Biddy, who, let
the world say what it would, had a fine understanding, and such a command of
her temper, that, whether she won or lost, she slept over her cards.
At lady Biddy’s she met with lady Tawdry, whose favour she gained by
estimating her ear-rings, which were counterfeit, at twice the value of real
diamonds. When she had once entered two houses of distinction, she was easily
admitted into more, and in ten weeks had all her time anticipated by parties
and engagements. Every morning she is bespoke, in the summer, for the
gardens, in the winter, for a sale; every afternoon she has visits to pay, and
every night brings an inviolable appointment, or an assembly in which the best
company in the town are to appear.
You will easily imagine that much of my domestick comfort is withdrawn. I
never see my wife but in the hurry of preparation, or the languor of weariness.
To dress and to undress is almost her whole business in private, and the
servants take advantage of her negligence to increase expense. But I can supply
her omissions by my own diligence, and should not much regret this new course
of life, if it did nothing more than transfer to me the care of our accounts. The
changes which it has made are more vexatious. My wife has no longer the use of
her understanding. She has no rule of action but the fashion. She has no opinion
but that of the people of quality. She has no language but the dialect of her own
set of company. She hates and admires in humble imitation; and echoes the
words charming and detestable without consulting her own perceptions.
If for a few minutes we sit down together, she entertains me with the repartees
of lady Cackle, or the conversation of lord Whiffler and Miss Quick, and wonders
to find me receiving with indifference sayings which put all the company into
laughter.
By her old friends she is no longer very willing to be seen, but she must not rid
herself of them all at once; and is sometimes surprised by her best visitants in
company which she would not show, and cannot hide; but from the moment
that a countess enters, she takes care neither to hear nor see them: they soon
find themselves neglected, and retire; and she tells her ladyship that they are
somehow related at a great distance, and that, as they are a good sort of
people, she cannot be rude to them.
As by this ambitious union with those that are above her, she is always forced
upon disadvantageous comparisons of her condition with theirs, she has a
constant source of misery within; and never returns from glittering assemblies
and magnificent apartments but she growls out her discontent, and wonders
why she was doomed to so indigent a state. When she attends the duchess to a
sale, she always sees something that she cannot buy; and, that she may not
seem wholly insignificant, she will sometimes venture to bid, and often make
acquisitions which she did not want at prices which she cannot afford.
What adds to all this uneasiness is, that this expense is without use, and this
vanity without honour; she forsakes houses where she might be courted, for
those where she is only suffered; her equals are daily made her enemies, and
her superiors will never be her friends.
*************
******** ********
Oliver Goldsmith :~
Man in Black :~
of how “he is the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his natural
benevolence.”
First Paragraph:
The man is a charitable man. He cares about others, gives to others, and shares
with others, but he pretends to not care about the well-being of others. He is
“ashamed of his natural benevolence.” While he pretends to have a disliking for
mankind, he’s not very good at pretending to be. The author reveals that his
poker face is not up to par. “… While his looks were softened into pity, I have
heard him use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature.”
Second Paragraph :
The “Man in Black” is so concerned with the place of the poor, that he
complains to the author of how ignorant the countrymen, or wealthy, are to the
state of living of the poorer people. He says that the poor only want a few
things – food, housing, clothes, and warmth but cannot obtain those things due
to the negligence of the fortunate.
Third Paragraph:
The man in black gives a beggar a piece of silver, but when doing so, he
appeared “ashamed” to present his weakness to the author; the man has too
much pride to show his soft spot for the less fortunate.
Fourth paragraph:
When a man with a wooden leg passed the author and the man in black, the
author ignored him. The man in black showed much attention to him, but
instead of giving him alms, he called him out to be a poser of the needy. But
once hearing the sailor’s story of fighting in defense of the country while others
“did nothing at home”, the man gave alms to him.
Fifth paragraph:
The man in black and the author ran into a woman who was an obvious
example of helpless, but he had no money to give her. He became shameful, as
it was presented in his face, but once he found a “shilling’s worth of matches”,
and placed it in her hands, he was pleased with himself seeing the smile in the
woman’s face. This anonymous man, the Man In Black, is a man of benevolence,
and is bluntly shameful of it. There is no understanding of why.
The man is one who cannot exhibit generous behavior without being ashamed
of it. He wants the world to see him as a man who does not care too much
about the well-being of others; much less, the unfortunate. He is the “Man In
Black”, because he hides his benevolence. He does not want to be noticed for it.
He is, the Man in Black.
************ *************
The clock has just struck two, the expiring taper rises and sinks in the socket, the
watchman forgets the hour in slumber, the laborious and the happy are at rest,
and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, and despair. The drunkard
once more fills the destroying bowl, the robber walks his midnight round, and
the suicide lifts his guilty arm against his own sacred person.
Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity or the sallies of
contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk, where Vanity, ever
changing, but a few hours past walked before me, where she kept up the
pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed with her own
importunities.
What a gloom hangs all around! The dying lamp feebly emits a yellow gleam; no
sound is heard but of the chiming clock, or the distant watch-dog. All the bustle
of human pride is forgotten; an hour like this may well display the emptiness of
human vanity.
There will come a time when this temporary solitude may be made continual,
and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room.
What cities, as great as this, have once triumphed in existence! had their
victories as great, joy as just and as "Unbounded, and, with short-sighted
presumption, promised themselves immortality! Posterity can hardly trace the
situation of some; the sorrowful traveller wanders over the lawful ruins of
others; and, as he beholds, he learns wisdom, and feels the transience of every
sublunary possession.
"Here," he cries, "stood their citadel, now grown over with, weeds; there, their
senate house, but now the haunt of every noxious,reptile; temples and theatres
stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruin. They are fallen: for luxury
and avarice first made them feeble. The rewards of the state were conferred on
amusing and not on useful members of society. Their riches and opulence
invited the invaders, who, though at first repulsed, returned again, conquered
by perseverance, and at last swept the defendants into undistinguished
destruction."
How few appear in those streets which, but some few hours ago, were
crowded! and those who appear now no longer wear their daily mask, nor
attempt to hide their lewdness or their misery.
But who are those who make the streets their couch, and find a short repose
from wretchedness at the doors of the opulent? These are strangers,
wanderers, and orphans, whose circumstances are too humble to expect
redress, and whose distresses are too great even for pity. Their wretchedness
rather excites horror than pity. Some are without the covering even of rags, and
others emaciated with disease: the world has disclaimed them; society turns its
back upon their distress, and has given them up to nakedness and hunger.
These poor shivering females have once seen happier days and been flattered
into beauty. They have been prostituted to the gay, luxurious villain, and are
now turned out to meet the severity of Winter. Perhaps, now lying at the doors
of their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose hearts are insensible, to
debauchees who may curse but will not relieve them.
Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of wretches I cannot
relieve! Poor houseless creatures! the world will give you reproaches, but will
not give you relief. The slightest misfortunes of the great, the most imaginary
uneasinesses of the rich, are aggravated with all the power of eloquence, and
held up to engage our attention and sympathetic sorrow. The poor weep
unheeded, persecuted by every subordinate species of tyranny; and every law,
which gives others security, becomes an enemy to them.
Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensibility! or why was not my
fortune adapted to its impulse! Tenderness, without a capacity of relieving, only
makes the man who feels it more wretched than the object which sues for
assistance. Adieu.
********* **********
Richard Steele:~
Recollections:~
'The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was
upon the death of my father'
by Richard Steele
********* **********
********* *********
10. Reflections In Westminster Abbey
Essays From Addison edited by J H Fowler Spectator No. 26,
March 30, 1711
Ancient greek—HOMER.
Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque —VIRGIL