Lifes Progress Through the Passions | Page 5

ran home on a sudden, and denied himself both food and sleep, till he had not only finished the task assigned him by his school-master, but also exceeded what was expected from him, instigated by the ambition of praise, and hope of being removed to a higher form.--But at other times again his love of play has rendered him totally forgetful of every thing besides, and all emulation in him absorbed in pleasure.--Thus hurried, as the different propensities prevailed, from one extreme to the other;--never in a medium, but always doing either more or less than was required of him.
In like manner was his avarice moderated by his _pity_;--an instance of which was this;--One morning having won at chuck-farthing, or some such game, all the money a poor boy was master of, and which he said had been given him to buy his breakfast, Natura was so much melted at his tears and complaints, that he generously returned to him the whole of what he had lost.--Greatly is it to be wished, the same sentiments of compassion would influence some of riper years, and make them scorn to take the advantage chance sometimes affords of ruining their fellow-creatures; but the misfortune is, that when we arrive at the state of perfect manhood, the worst passions are apt to get the better of the more noble, as the prospect they present is more alluring to the eye of sense: all men (as I said before) being born with the same propensities, it is virtue alone, or in other words, a strict morality, which prevents them from actuating alike in all.--But to return to the young Natura.
He was scarce ten years old when his mother died; but was not sensible of the misfortune he sustained by the loss of her, though, as it afterwards proved, was the greatest could have happened to him: the remembrance of the tenderness with which she had used him, joined to the sight of all the family in tears, made him at first indeed utter some bitter lamentations; but the thoughts of a new suit of mourning, a dress he had never yet been in, soon dissipated his grief, and the sight of himself before the great glass, in a habit so altogether strange, and therefore pleasing to him, took off all anguish for the sad occasion.--So early do we begin to be sensible of a satisfaction in any thing that we imagine is an advantage to our persons, or will make us be taken notice of.--How it grows up with us, and how difficult it is to be eradicated, I appeal even to those of the most sour and cynical disposition.
Mr. Dryden admirably describes this propensity in human nature in these lines:
Men are but children of a larger growth, Our appetites as prone to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.
A fondness for trifles is certainly no less conspicuous in age than youth; and we daily see it among persons of the best understanding, who wholly neglect every essential to real happiness in the pursuit of those very toys which children cry to be indulged in; even such as a bit of ribband, or the sound of a monosyllable tacked to the name; without considering that those badges of distinction, like bells about an ideot's neck, frequently serve only to render their folly more remarkable, and expose them to the contempt of the lookers on, who perhaps too, as nature is the same in all, want but the same opportunity to catch no less eagerly at the tawdry gewgaw.
Natura felt not the loss of his dear mother, till he beheld another in her place. His father entered into a second marriage before much more than half his year of widowhood was expired, with a lady, who, though pretty near his equal in years, had yet remains enough of beauty to render her extremely vain and affected, and fortune enough to make her no less proud.--These two qualities occasioned Natura many rebuffs, to which he had not been acoustomed, and he felt them the more severely, as the name of mother had made him expect the same proofs of tenderness from this, who had the title, as he had remembered to have received from her who had been really so.
He endeavoured at first to insinuate himself into her favour by all those little flattering artifices which are so becoming in persons of his tender years, and which never fail to make an impression on a gentle and affable disposition; but finding his services not only rejected, but also rejected with scorn and moroseness, his spirit was too great to continue them for any long time; and all the assiduity he had shewn to gain her good-will, was on a sudden converted into