Romance and comedy writers always make lovers rich before they marry: they know this is an essential requisite to the completion of happiness, both in the hero and the heroine. Unfortunately, young people follow the example of these romantic characters in love, but not in the acquisition of fortune: they forget that love alone will not make them happy, and that, like lunatics, as they come more and more to themselves, they will require more and more the comforts and conveniences of life, which, in the paroxysm of passion, were never attended to.
The people of Fire Island are accused of pillaging strangers who are shipwrecked. Are not the inhabitants of inland towns equally eager to divide the spoil of a deceased neighbor or friend, and to glut themselves with the idea of obtaining his property at half the value?
Prudent people never are beloved. Imprudence, by preventing envy, raises popularity; yet prudence is the sole friend of generosity. Generosity is like a beautiful and expansive river; we admire its beauty, and enjoy its advantages, but neither see nor think of the secret springs that feed it.
The idea of good or bad fortune attending a man, has been generally received in all ages. Cicero recommended Pompey to the Romans for their general, as he was a man of good fortune; and Cardinal Mazarin, when any officer was recommended to him, always asked, “Est il heureux?”
We never regard innovation, or even oppression, till it comes home to ourselves. In the life of Cromwell, an anecdote is told of a clerk in chancery, who had seen with great indifference all the alterations that had been made in the constitution both in church and state; but when he was told there was to be some new regulations in the sex’ clerk’s office—Nay, says he, if they begin once to strike out fundamentals, there is no telling where they will stop.