EMILIA.
Perhaps it is because that a goldsmith gains greater profit, and goes better clothed.
CHARLES.
You have well observed, Emilia. We are very unreasonable when we are proud of dress. Where should we get the finery, if the hard hands of the diligent labourer did not provide the materials? A diamond is dug out of the earth without our assistance. Silk stuff, prepared by the industry of a worm, and in which we pride ourselves, is worked for us without our knowing how.—Yet, we are delighted with the praise we receive, as much as we could be had we invented the arts, or manufactured the product of the earth. We only wear what the skill and industry of others have procured for us.—What are we, when we recollect such foolish pride?—We who presume to arrogate merit to ourselves, which belongs to others; to the weavers and taylors—and even to the worms that contribute to adorn us. But you may say, such habits are a proof that we are rich, or born in a distinguished rank.—It is nothing!—We are, as I have just proved, indebted for the gold and silver to the poor miners, who, at the expence of health, dig it out of the mine—and we possess it by mere chance.—And our birth, of which we are apt to boast so much, is equally accidental.
EMILIA.
But we pay more respect to painters, and all those who exercise the fine arts, than we do to mechanics, though theirs are not useful employments.
CHARLES.
That is, because we involuntarily pay respect to an improved mind. Dr. Bartlett has taught me to make distinctions. Those employments, in which the mind is exercised more than the body, tend to cultivate the understanding, the noblest kind of superiority. Those artists afford food for the mind; pleasures that the man has not any conception of who is occupied in manual labour. We may choose our companions and friends; but all the labourers in the great field of life, are our brothers; and equally deserve the rights of humanity. And they are superior to their fellow men who are most extensively useful, not those who, in false state, exhibit diamonds and gold on their body, whilst their minds are, perhaps, inferior to those of the poor creatures, who, by a weak taper’s light, dug them out of their hidden place, to decorate folly, not ornament virtue; for virtue has inherent splendor.
Dear mother, I will never exalt myself on account of my birth again; but I will try to gain the noblest distinction, that of virtue. For with respect to understanding, I have often seen the witty applauded, when those you termed wise, were scarcely observed.—What, is not this admiring the dazzling and neglecting the useful? But, you say the generality are superficial, and only attend to the outside of things. I will try to remember, that the praise of one sensible person, is of more worth than the encomium of a crowd; because they consider before they speak.
WILLIAM.