'There is nothing more fatal to a man whose business is to think than to have learned the art of regaling his mind with those airy gratifications. Other vices or follies are restrained by fear, reformed by admonition, or rejected by conviction, which the comparison of our conduct with that of others may in time produce. But this invisible riot of the mind, this secret prodigality of being, is secure from detection and fearless from reproach. The dreamer retires to his apartments, shuts out the cares and interruptions of mankind, and abandons himself to his own fancy; new worlds rise up before him, one image is followed by another, and a long succession of delights dances around him. He is at last called back to life by nature or by custom, and enters peevish into society because he cannot model it to his own will. He returns from his idle excursions with the asperity, though not with the knowledge, of a student, and hastens again to the same felicity with the eagerness of a man bent upon the advancement of some favourite science. The infatuation strengthens by degrees, and, like the poison of opiates, weakens his powers without any external symptom of malignity.'
The 'Rambler.'—Vol. II. No. 100.
'It is hard upon poor creatures, be they ever so mean, to deny them those enjoyments and liberties which are equally open for all. Yet, if servants were taught to go to church on Sunday, spend some part of it in reading, or receiving instruction in a family way, and the rest in mere friendly conversation, the poor wretches would infallibly take it into their heads that they were obliged to be sober, modest, diligent, and faithful to their masters and mistresses.'
The 'Rambler.'—Vol. II. No. 114.
When man's life is in debate,
The judge can ne'er too long deliberate.—Dryden.
'The gibbet, indeed, certainly disables those who die upon it from infesting the community; but their death seems not to contribute more to the reformation of their associates than any other method of separation. A thief seldom passes much of his time in recollection or anticipation, but from robbery hastens to riot, and from riot to robbery; nor, when the grave closes upon his companion, has any other care than to find another.
