Another time, as I and a smaller boy were hunting, he walked over a creek upon a log, which he saw was just able to bear his weight, through rottenness. "You had better not venture," said he to me. But I said, I had always heard, example was better than precept, and following him, was soused by the breaking of the log, in six feet water. Being a good swimmer, I escaped with a ducking, (it was near Christmas,) and with wetting my gun, lock, priming, and all: so that it cost me a full hour to refit for sport.
It is not, however, commonly, either immediate or bodily harm that we incur by means of this Jack-o'lantern proverb. Our faith in it is not sufficient to lead us into instant and obvious danger: it is in general the opiate with which we lull ourselves, only when the evil we are warned against is of the moral kind, or likely to occur at a remote period.
In my youth, I read novels to a pernicious excess. They enfeebled my memory; unfixed my power of attention and my habits of thought; blunted my zest for history; dimmed my perception of reasoning; gave me the most illusory ideas of human life and character; and filled my brain with fantastic visions. A passion for learning, and the timely counsels of a sensible friend, subsequently won me so far from this career of dissipation, that I surmounted in some degree its evil effects, and acquired a moderate stock of solid knowledge: but to my dying day I shall feel its cloying, unhinging, debilitating influence upon my mental constitution. Still, even latterly, I have continued to indulge myself with the best novels, as they appeared. My weakness in this respect unluckily became known to a young girl, who seemed to be exactly treading in my footsteps; and whom I earnestly warned of the dangers besetting that path. "Now, cousin L., how can you talk so, when I have seen you devouring the Antiquary, and Guy Mannering, and Patronage, and I don't know how many besides! You need not preach to me: example is better than precept." Therefore—for the reasoning seemed to her as conclusive as Euclids—therefore she went on, with undistinguishing voracity, through all the spawn of the novel press: and there is not now a sadder instance of the effects of novel-reading. After rejecting with disdain three suitors every way her equals, (and in real merit her superiors,) because they were so unlike her favorite novel heroes—did not woo on their knees or in blank verse—and had 'such shocking, vulgar names'—she, at three and twenty, married a coxcomb, formed precisely after the model upon which her 'mind's eye' had so long dwelt. He was gaudy, flippant, and specious; knew a dozen of Moore's Melodies by rote; could softly discourse of the heart and its affections, as if he really possessed the one, and had actually felt the other; and, most irresistible of all, his name was EDWIN MORTIMER FITZGERALD. The result may be imagined. The society of such a being could not long please. Their conversation was a routine of insipid frivolity and angry disputes. With no definite principles of economy or of morals, he wasted his fortune and wrecked his health over the bottle and at cards—excitements, the usual resource of a weak, ill-cultivated understanding. She is now a widow, scantily endowed, at the age of twenty-seven. Her mind, too much engrossed by her darling pursuit to have learned, even in the impressive school of adversity, is nearly a blank as to all useful knowledge: imagination, paramount there over every other faculty, is prolific of innumerable fooleries; she can do no work beyond crimping a ruff or making a frill: and her nerves, shattered by tea, late hours, and sentimental emotion at fictitious scenes, threaten a disordered intellect and a premature grave.
To this impertinent adage, about example and precept, is it chiefly owing that I am at this moment a bachelor, aged fifty. I used it to parry the repeated instances made me by a friendly senior bachelor, to be "up and a doing," in the journey towards matrimony. As the proverb commonly silenced him, it appeared to me at last, as it does to most people, a satisfactory answer; it was the lullaby, with which I hushed into repose every transient qualm that his expostulations excited. My friend at length, in reasonable time, took me at my word, and added example to precept: he married, well and happily. But one obstacle or other, real or imaginary, had by this time confirmed me in my inactivity. Business occupied my time: chimerical visions of female excellence, in spite of my better reason, haunted me from the regions of romance, and made me hard to be pleased, even by merits which I was obliged to confess were superior to my own: courtship, by being long in view yet long deferred, came at length to appear clothed in embarrassment and terror: a failure, resulting (as vanity whispered,) purely from the awkwardness produced by embarrassment and terror, finally crushed all matrimonial aspirations: and, as it is now absurd to hope for a love-match, (a genuine novel-reader can brook no other) I am e'en trying to resign myself to the doom of perpetual celibacy.
'Twere needless to multiply examples. These suffice to shew, not only how absurd in reasoning, but how hurtful often in practice it is, to consider advice as at all the less good, for not being enforced by the giver's example. That proverb has done as much harm in the world as the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility, or of the divine right of kings; or as the silly saying, "stuff a cold, and starve a fever;" or, as (by its perversion) that unfortunate one, "spare the rod, and spoil the child."
Yet, after all, the maxim I have been exposing is not untrue. Example IS better than precept: DOES more effectually shew the right way. But it is fallacious, and mischievous, by being misapplied. Instead of being regarded merely as a rebuke to the adviser, it is absurdly taken by the advised as a justication to himself in persisting in error. In most cases it is not even a just rebuke to the adviser: because ten to one there is some dissimilarity of situation or of circumstances, which makes it not expedient or proper for him to do what he nevertheless properly recommends to another. While I shew you your road—and shew it with perfect correctness—my own duty or pleasure may call me another way, or may bid me remain where I am. But the adage is never an apology for the advised party's neglect of advice: and whensoever he attempts to use it as such, his plea, though abstractly true, is impertinent—is nothing to the purpose.
M.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.