Society, however, although it is thus pointed out to us, as it were by the finger of the Almighty, as the means of reaching our highest possible state of earthly felicity, is so pregnant with dangers, that it depends entirely on ourselves, whether the indulgence of this instinctive propensity shall be productive of happiness or misery.
The pleasures of society, like pleasures of every other kind, must, to be pure and permanent, be temperate and discreet. While passion animates, and sensibility cherishes, reason must direct, and virtue be the object of our course. Those who search for happiness in a vague, desultory, and indiscriminate intercourse with the world; who imagine the palace of pleasure to be surrounded by the gay, unthinking, and volatile part of the species; who conceive that the rays of all human delight beam from places of public festivity and resort;
“Who all their joys in mean profusion waste,
Without reflection, management, or taste;
Careless of all that virtue gives to please;
For thought too active, and too mad for ease;
Who give each appetite too loose a rein,
Push all enjoyment to the verge of pain;
Impetuous follow where the passions call,