Lu. Then Europe for me, after all! But is not America as good?
Pa. That part of North America which has been settled by Europeans, is only another Europe in manners and civilization. But the original inhabitants of that extensive country were bold and hardy barbarians, and many of them continue so to this day. So much for the temperate zone, which contains the prime of mankind. They differ extremely, however, in government, laws, customs, and religions. The Christian religion has the credit of reckoning among its votaries all the civilized people of Europe and America. The Mahometan possesses all the nearer parts of Asia, and the north of Africa, but China, Japan, and most of the circumjacent countries, profess different forms of paganism. The East, in general, is enslaved to despotism; but the nobler West enjoys in most of its states more or less of freedom.
As to the frigid zone, its few inhabitants can but just sustain a life little better than that of the brutes. Their faculties are benumbed by the climate. Their chief employment is the fishery or the chase, by which they procure their food. The tending of herds of raindeer in some parts varies their occupations and diet. They pass their long winters in holes dug underground, where they doze out most of their time in stupid repose.
Lu. I wonder any people should stay in such miserable places!
Pa. Yet none of the inhabitants of the globe seem more attached to their country and way of life. Nor do they, indeed, want powers to render their situation tolerably comfortable. Their canoes, and fishing, and hunting tackle, are made with great ingenuity; and their clothing is admirably adapted to fence against the rigours of cold. They are not without some amusements to cheer the gloom of their condition: but they are abjectly superstitious, and given to fear and melancholy.
Lu. If I had my choice, I would rather go to a warmer than a colder country.
Pa. Perhaps the warmer countries are pleasanter; but there are few advantages which are not balanced by some inconveniences; and it is the truest wisdom to be contented with our lot, and endeavour to make the best of it. One great lesson, however, I wish you to derive from this globe-lecture. You see that no part of the world is void of our human brethren, who, amid all the diversities of character and condition, are yet all men, filling the station in which their Creator has placed them. We are too apt to look at the differences of mankind, and to undervalue all those who do not agree with us in matters that we think of high importance. But who are we—and what cause have we to think ourselves right, and all others wrong? Can we imagine that hundreds of millions of our species in other parts of the world are left destitute of what is essential to their well-being, while a favoured few like ourselves are the only ones who possess it? Having all a common nature, we must necessarily agree in more things than we differ in. The road to virtue and happiness is alike open to all. The mode of pursuit is various: the end is the same.
ENVY AND EMULATION.
At one of the celebrated schools of painting in Italy, a young man named Guidotto produced a piece so excellent, that it was the admiration of the masters in the art, who all declared it to be their opinion that he could not fail of rising to the summit of his profession, should he proceed as he had begun.
This performance was looked upon with very different eyes by two of his fellow-scholars. Brunello, the elder of them, who had himself acquired some reputation in his studies, was mortified in the highest degree at this superiority of Guidotto; and regarding all the honour his rival had acquired as so much taken from himself, he conceived the most rancorous dislike of him, and longed for nothing so much as to see him lose the credit he had gained. Afraid openly to decry the merit of a work which had obtained the approbation of the best judges, he threw out secret insinuations that Guidotto had been assisted in it by one or other of his masters; and he affected to represent it as a sort of lucky hit, which the reputed author would never equal.