(Guardian, no 100, et Spectator, nos 204 et 224.)
[377]: There is nothing that exposes a woman to greater dangers than that gaiety and airiness of temper, which are natural to most of the sex. It should be therefore the concern of every wise and virtuous woman to keep this sprightliness from degenerating into levity. On the contrary the whole discourse and behaviour of the French is to make the sex more fantastical, or (as they are pleased to term it) more awakened than is consistent either with virtue or discretion. (Spectator, no 45.)
[378]: Spectator, 317 et 323.
[379]: Spectator, 397.
[380]: Ibid., 571.
[381]: To be easy here and happy afterwards.
[382]: I have rather chosen this title than another, because it is what I most glory in, and most effectually calls to my mind the happiness of that government under which I live. As a British freeholder, I should not scruple taking place of a French Marquis; and when I see one of my countrymen amusing himself in his little cabbage-garden, I naturally look upon him as a greater person than the owner of the richest vineyard in Champagne.... There is an unspeakable pleasure in calling anything one's own. A Freehold, though it be but in ice and snow, will make the owner pleased in the possession and stout in the defence of it.... I consider myself as one who give my consent to every law which passes.... A freeholder is but one remove from a legislator, and for that reason ought to stand up in the defence of those laws which are in some degree of his own making.
(Freeholder, no 1.)
[383]: Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion; and this I think myself amply possessed of, as I am the father of a family. I am perpetually taken up in giving out orders, in prescribing duties, in hearing parties, in administering justice, and in distributing rewards and punishments.... I look upon my family as a patriarchal sovereignty in which I am myself both king and priest.... When I see my little troop before me, I rejoice in the additions I have made to my species, to my country, to my religion, in having produced such a number of reasonable creatures, citizens, and christians. I am pleased to see myself thus perpetuated; and as there is no production comparable to that of a human creature, I am more proud of having been the occasion of ten such glorious productions, than if I had built a hundred pyramids at my own expense, or published as many volumes of the finest wit and learning.
(Spectator, no 500.)