Lifes Progress Through the Passions | Page 5

part, such opposites, that the one is a sufficient check
upon the other.--The pride of treating those beneath us with contempt,
is restrained by the fear of meeting the same usage from those above
us.--A sordid covetousness is controlled by ostentation.--Sloth is roused
by ambition, and so of the rest.--I have been told that when Natura, by
the enticements of his companions, and his own eagerness to pursue the
sports suitable to his years, had been drawn in to neglect his studies, he
had often 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