See there—worthy patterns of a gentleman and lady. He is an honest and faithful husband, and she an affectionate and virtuous wife. They love wisely and well, live happily in each other, and are models to all who know them. Make them your friends, for the very atmosphere in which they move is worth more than all the attention a thousand such as have yet passed us could bestow. The lord who loves his lady truly, and ever keeps unbroken the faith he has plighted to her, becomes as much an example to the world as a joy to his wife; and the lady who never forgets her affection and allegiance to her lord, is so much superior to the common woman that to him she always seems an angel out of Paradise. “An honest man,” said old Simonides, “can have nothing in this world better than a good wife,” and surely an honest woman can ask no higher blessing than a good husband. You see such in those two, and may well seek their friendship and profit by their excellencies of character and correctness of habits. Ah! thought Peter, a happy oasis in the desert of matrimonial life, still inspiring reverence for the institution, though it be made the fickle plaything of the world, its common game of heedless chance and hazard.
There, sir, in that old man you see an impersonation of prejudice, a quality not inaptly defined as “the spider of the mind, filling it with cobwebs.” His opinion once set, no power on earth can change it, and beware that you press not too closely, lest he adopt the convincing logic of Frederick the Great, who, it is said, when argument failed to enforce his convictions, had recourse to “kicking the shins of his opponent.” Guide his thoughts into one channel and they will follow it, though it should lead him to the devil. His prejudices frequently render him as obstinate as a mule, and as often not as wise. He still stands where his fathers stood before him, and joined to the idols and follies of a past age, he has no sympathies with the present. If he thinks at all, he does so simply to fasten upon his mind the more his cherished errors, and your only policy is to “let him alone.” Never, reflected Peter, undertake to straighten the crooked nature of the prejudiced man, for to him all your facts are nothing but a stumbling-block, and all your reasons simple foolishness.
Yonder lame individual furnishes a story well illustrating the fickleness of the human heart. Though we may appear to be enraptured with a single feeling, the intervention of a trifling circumstance not unfrequently entirely relieves us of it. That gentleman courted a fair young maiden, and eventually his attentions resulted in a betrothal. An unfortunate accident soon after deprived him of a leg, and being thus deformed, his love required little time to extinguish her affection, and accordingly broke her faith. She had bargained more for a solid man than a sound head or heart, and being disabled from complying with the conditions, he was politely rejected. Thus good luck often springs from misfortune, and he gained greatly by the loss of a limb. What a world of cripples, thought Peter, this would suddenly become, could all who desired it be relieved by the loss of a leg of the ills from which his fortunate misfortune preserved him.
Turn your eyes to the left, and you may behold a fanciful pair approaching towards us. That pursy and apparently very jovial fellow—mine host of yonder inn—keeps a resort for gentility, and under the cover of respectability, sends forth unnumbered evils to infest and afflict the community. The practices of his house flourish admirably under the beauty of a fashionable exterior; yet the pestiferous rottenness within could not withstand the eye of modern justice for a moment if disguised only in rags. Public morality in the case where gold is concerned, is quite a different thing from that wherein simple copper is brought into the scale. Respectable crime easily escapes the keen vigilance of those who guard the public virtue, whilst we are loud in their praises when some poor, abandoned, God-forsaken wretch is hurried to his doom amid the imposing show of a high morality and an even-handed justice. That man may lavishly spread his fearful evils—the only things with which men appear to be truly bountiful—with unchecked freedom; and whenever they press too heavily upon us, a few plaintive groans will soon arouse the slumbering sentinels of the law. Powerful justice will sound its signal, triumphantly make a brutal “descent” upon some paltry hut, and drag its starving inmates to the slaughter. Well, has not Carneades pronounced his definitive sentence that “justice is folly;” and what matters it whether I offend, and some more unfortunate creature pays the penalty, so that justice is appeased? It must have victims, and fate, ill-fortune, and poverty, have not been miserly in providing them. Thus it is never at a loss for the means wherewith to preserve that reputation which Tully thought so essential “that even those who lived by outrage and villany could not subsist without at least its shadow or semblance.” That fortunate knave may prosper in his practices, and though their fatal consequences may sometimes arouse our vengeance, there never will be wanting those whose immolation will allay it. His tall, robust companion is a character—a perfect original. He will hug, and pet, and caress you with the tenderness of a captivated maiden, all for a picayune; and when he has thus fondled it out of your possession, having no prospect of realizing more, he would as lovingly kick you out of doors for a ha’penny—thus making you as profitable a customer as the circumstances could possibly admit. Headlong and heedless withal, his actions ever in advance of his thoughts, he is a mass of locomotive matter, tumbling about on the earth, with no idea to accomplish, no purpose to fulfil. This is not the only one, reflected Peter, who has, by some comical dispensation of nature, been placed outside of his orbit, as if it designed to exhibit what a fickle whirligig can be made of man by unhinging his directing power.
Look to that building yonder. The gentleman who has just entered it is a modern reformer. He railed against the evil habits of men, and the sinful and dishonest practices of the world, until sent to the penitentiary for having attached another man’s name to a small piece of bankable paper. The imitation was good, but unfortunately for him history had chronicled the adventures of Saavadra, the famous and somewhat romantic nuncio of Portugal, and having failed, in his mania for improvement, to improve upon this noted forger, he atoned for his unsuccessful attempt by faithfully serving the full period of his sentence. He is now riding his hobby-horse of “Reform” again, with even greater boldness than before. This may be owing to the extra courage acquired, or perhaps to the change effected in the times, during the period which he devoted to solitary meditations. The sledge-hammer mode of reform has since accomplished marvels and become highly fashionable; but it is now greatly feared that many too charitable fellows, in their exceedingly magnanimous efforts to drive the erring back from the brink of perdition, will stand a very excellent chance of tumbling in themselves. He has abandoned the task of persuading for the more exalted one of coercing, which may prove more profitable; but should he branch out a second time upon his own responsibility, it is hoped he may realize his ideas of improvement by choosing some species of roguery wherein he shall leave no historical example unexcelled. It is no uncommon occurrence of the ludicrous in life, reflected Peter, to see those in whom the ordinary thief could not confide, suddenly become reformers, and find patrons for their presumption and fools to regard them as patterns of moral propriety.
Note that gentleman and lady opposite. He is her husband. Having seen his wife in dishabille the morning after his wedding, and meeting her upon his return home at noon arrayed for public inspection, it is currently reported, he found her so much improved and beautified that he mistook her for a stranger, and absolutely asked her of the whereabout of his spouse. Nature has been exceedingly kind after all. If it has ordained that youth should fade, it has generously furnished the material whereby a century can be made to assume the appearance of a score. What matters it that old Father Cyprian thought all change the work of satan, and pronounced it running counter to the will of God to paint or black the hair, because he had read, “Thou canst not make one hair white or black?” Who cares for the declaration of Tertullian, that “it is the devil that mounts the actors on their buskins, in order to make Jesus Christ a liar, who has said, that no one can add one cubit to his stature?” They were both wofully mistaken, and our ladies have most triumphantly refuted their errors, by silently exhibiting that a hundred Tophets could not supply imps enough to make half the changes and additions which they daily parade before our eyes. It is marvellous, reflected Peter, what artificial charms can be conjured up by those who properly understand the art of beauty; and why should they fret and complain against fate, when, with paint, powder, and cotton, they are constantly proving that their troublesome deficiencies were simply meant as so many kindnesses, by leaving them at liberty to manufacture whatever hue and dimensions that might best please their fancies?
The young lady and gentleman who have just passed by, seem to have arrested your attention. They are intimate acquaintances, and it is conjectured they will be something more in due time. You heard her indignant remark upon the dissoluteness of that young man yonder, a distant and ill-starred connexion of hers, and her emphatic wish for an edict providing for the decapitation of all such reckless creatures. Her creed, my dear sir, if impartially carried into effect, would scarcely permit a head to remain solidly upon the shoulders of a single citizen in the country; and her companion, though he does share her virtuous affections, would be one of the first to despair for his own. If shrewder and more cunning, he certainly is no better than the individual who has elicited her censure, though she knows it not. Her ignorance is blissful, however deceptive. Should some superhuman agency, thought Peter, suddenly reveal the truthful characters of Cupid’s followers, how many confiding maidens would be startled at having admired the most knavish deceivers, and how many foolish swains would stand aghast with horror at the dishonest treachery of their lady-loves!
In that young man approaching this way, you may recognise somewhat of a philosopher. You might as well attempt to scale the mountains of the moon as to persuade him that there was much real virtue in the world. “We are honest,” he argues, “from convenience or policy, and apparently moral from a fear of society, which has established certain rules, and is given to certain general opinions, the violations of which are always attended with some difficulties or vexations. The old Romans had their censors, whose chief business it was to inspect the morals of the citizens, and could we, by following some such example, spread out before us the hidden conduct and practices of each individual, the little of real conscience and truth, substantial honesty and morality, we should be able to detect, might tempt us to abandon our moral code entirely. Or could we, by a glance, penetrate the past lives and habits, and scrutinize the secret sins of all whom we encounter, what a terrible blushing there would be in the world, and how many would laugh in each other’s faces! Many whose apparent honesty now claims your respect, unable any longer to disguise their hypocrisy, would only make merry over the numerous counterparts of themselves with whom they should constantly come in contact. The virtuous Thrasea spoke but the truth in his favorite maxim, that ‘he who suffers himself to hate vice will hate mankind;’ for, although all must pretend to virtue from a kind of social necessity, it is a garment which they cast aside without a pause when rendered safe from detection, ever faithfully illustrating the saying of Agathias, that ‘virtue upon necessity is just as long lived as the fear that occasions it.’ The world seems desperately determined to vindicate what its Saviour has affirmed, and no prophecy promises to be more fully realized than his sorrowful declaration that ‘narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.’” Such is a taste of the young man’s opinions, in which he is so firmly rooted, that should you persuade him that the fate of the town depended upon ten righteous men to be found within it, he would at once take to his heels, and never pause until he was far out of danger. Whether there is not too much of correctness in his melancholy views, you must determine for yourself.—No very difficult matter, reflected Peter, amid the many unpleasant examples that are destined daily to bring unwelcome aid to your judgment, and exhibit to your gaze so many who seem but to struggle the hardest to obtain the greatest curses.
You will pardon the interruption, said the stranger, but my attention has been arrested by the counterfeit manikin suspended by the neck to the branch of yonder tree, and my curiosity excited to know what fickle whim or fancy placed it there. Its import, replied the other, not endeavoring to restrain his merriment, is very significant. The female occupants of the adjoining houses have for some time been engaged in a bitter quarrel. The intolerable scolding propensities of one of them, common report avers, caused her husband to resort to that effective mode of obtaining relief. The cunning of the other, in the progress of the quarrel, has devised that silent but expressive expedient as an annoyance and remembrancer to her enemy, and by replacing it as often as it is destroyed, promises fair to be the conqueror in the end.
Here you may recognise one of those silly or knavish creatures, in whom it is difficult to tell whether the mule or the monkey predominates. He knows but of one vice in the world, and it is the subject of his constant denunciations. He is ceaseless in his praises of honesty, and as “opportunity makes the thief,” according to the proverb, he will probably preserve his reputation as long as he remains amongst those who know him. It is given as a rule, and in case you encounter him it may prove of service, always to mistrust the man who too much prides himself upon possessing a certain quality, and to be suspicious of him who constantly deals in vehement complaints against a particular vice. Such are generally weak in what they boast themselves strong, and their darts are frequently directed against the very fault peculiar to themselves. It is so, thought Peter, even with the great world, which ever descries its own practices, and yet tenaciously continues in them, as if loathe to part with such excellent causes to elicit its censure, and such admirable escape-valves through which its wrath may freely ooze itself away.