[Footnote 1: Percy said he had been told that
this was William Cavendish, first Duke of Devonshire,
who died in 1707.]
* * * *
*
No. 100. Monday, June 25, 1711.
Steele.
‘Nil ego
contulerim jucundo sanus amico.’
Hor.
A man advanced in Years that thinks fit to look back
upon his former Life, and calls that only Life which
was passed with Satisfaction and Enjoyment, excluding
all Parts which were not pleasant to him, will find
himself very young, if not in his Infancy. Sickness,
Ill-humour, and Idleness, will have robbed him of
a great Share of that Space we ordinarily call our
Life. It is therefore the Duty of every Man that
would be true to himself, to obtain, if possible, a
Disposition to be pleased, and place himself in a
constant Aptitude for the Satisfactions of his Being.
Instead of this, you hardly see a Man who is not uneasy
in proportion to his Advancement in the Arts of Life.
An affected Delicacy is the common Improvement we
meet with in those who pretend to be refined above
others: They do not aim at true Pleasures themselves,
but turn their Thoughts upon observing the false Pleasures
of other Men. Such People are Valetudinarians
in Society, and they should no more come into Company
than a sick Man should come into the Air: If a
Man is too weak to bear what is a Refreshment to Men
in Health, he must still keep his Chamber. When
any one in Sir ROGER’S Company complains he is
out of Order, he immediately calls for some Posset-drink
for him; for which reason that sort of People who
are ever bewailing their Constitution in other Places
are the Chearfullest imaginable when he is present.
It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not
reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with whom they
converse by giving them the History of their Pains
and Aches; and imagine such Narrations their Quota
of the Conversation. This is of all other the
meanest Help to Discourse, and a Man must not think
at all, or think himself very insignificant, when he
finds an Account of his Head-ach answer’d by
another’s asking what News in the last Mail?
Mutual good Humour is a Dress we ought to appear in
whenever we meet, and we should make no mention of
what concerns our selves, without it be of Matters
wherein our Friends ought to rejoyce: But indeed
there are Crowds of People who put themselves in no
Method of pleasing themselves or others; such are
those whom we usually call indolent Persons.
Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate State between
Pleasure and Pain, and very much unbecoming any Part
of our Life after we are out of the Nurse’s
Arms. Such an Aversion to Labour creates a constant
Weariness, and one would think should make Existence
it self a Burthen. The indolent Man descends
from the Dignity of his Nature, and makes that Being
which was Rational merely Vegetative: His Life
consists only in the meer Encrease and Decay of a
Body, which, with relation to the rest of the World,
might as well have been uninformed, as the Habitation
of a reasonable Mind.
