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.
I never yet knew a wag (as the term is) who was not a dunce.
When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.
The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.