I cannot sufficiently admire those kingdoms in which men with large patrimonial estates are willing thus to undergo real hardships for empty favours. A person, already possessed of a competent fortune, who undertakes to enter the career of ambition feels many real inconveniences from his station, while it procures him no real happiness that he was not possessed of before. He could eat, drink, and sleep before he became a courtier, as well, perhaps better, than when invested with his authority.
What real good, then, does an addition to a fortune already sufficient procure? Not any. Could the great man, by having his fortune increased, increase also his appetite, then precedence might be attended with real amusement. But, on the contrary, he finds his desire for pleasure often lessen as he takes pains to be able to improve it; and his capacity of enjoyment diminishes as his fortune happens to increase.
Instead, therefore, of regarding the great with envy, I generally consider them with some share of compassion. I look upon them as a set of good-natured, misguided people, who are indebted to us, and not to themselves, for all the happiness they enjoy. For our pleasure, and not their own, they sweat under a cumbrous heap of finery; for our pleasure, the hackneyed train, the slow-parading pageant, with all the gravity of grandeur, moves in review; a single coat, or a single footman, answers all the purposes of the most indolent refinement as well; and those who have twenty may be said to keep one for their own pleasure, and the other nineteen for ours. So true is the observation of Confucius, "That we take greater pains to persuade others that we are happy than in endeavouring to think so ourselves."
But though this desire of being seen, of being made the subject of discourse, and of supporting the dignities of an exalted station, be troublesome to the ambitious, yet it is well that there are men thus willing to exchange ease and safety for danger and a ribbon. We lose nothing by their vanity, and it would be unkind to endeavour to deprive a child of its rattle.... Adieu.
The Folly of the Recluse
FROM LIEN CHI ALTANGI TO HINGPO, HIS SON
Books, my son, while they teach us to respect the interests of others, often make us unmindful of our own; while they instruct the youthful reader to grasp at social happiness, he grows miserable in detail. I dislike, therefore, the philosopher, who describes the inconveniences of life in such pleasing colours that the pupil grows enamoured of distress, longs to try the charms of poverty, meets it without dread, nor fears its inconveniences till he severely feels them.
A youth who has thus spent his life among books, new to the world, and unacquainted with man but by philosophic information, may be considered as a being whose mind is filled with the vulgar errors of the wise. He first has learned from books, and then lays it down as a maxim that all mankind are virtuous or vicious in excess; warm, therefore, in attachments, and steadfast in enmity, he treats every creature as a friend or foe. Upon a closer inspection of human nature he perceives that he should have moderated his friendship, and softened his severity; he finds no character so sanctified that has not its failings, none so infamous but has somewhat to attract our esteem; he beholds impiety in lawn, and fidelity in fetters.
He now, therefore, but too late, perceives that his regards should have been more cool, and his hatred less violent; that the truly wise seldom court romantic friendships with the good, and avoid, if possible, the resentment even of the wicked; every movement gives him fresh instances that the bonds of friendship are broken if drawn too closely, and that those whom he has treated with disrespect more than retaliate the injury; at length, therefore, he is obliged to confess that he has declared war upon the vicious half of mankind, without being able to form an alliance among the virtuous to espouse his quarrel.
Our book-taught philosopher, however, is now too far advanced to recede; and though poverty be the just consequence of the many enemies his conduct has created, yet he is resolved to meet it without shrinking. "Come, then, O Poverty! for what is there in thee dreadful to the Wise? Temperance, Health, and Frugality walk in thy train; Cheerfulness and Liberty are ever thy companions. Come, then, O Poverty, while kings stand by, and gaze with admiration at the true philosopher's resignation!"
The goddess appears, for Poverty ever comes at the call; but, alas! he finds her by no means the charming figure books and his warm imagination had painted. All the fabric of enthusiasm is at once demolished, and a thousand miseries rise upon its ruins, while Contempt, with pointing finger, is foremost in the hideous procession.