temptations of others that we may the better understand our own. 'How is it men, when they in judgment sit On the same faults, now censure, now acquit ? Their grievous fall; but not, how grieved they fell: Not how we fell, but how we grieved to fall.' -Crabbe, Tales of the Hall. But though ten thousand of the greatest faults in others are, to us, of less consequence than one small fault in ourselves, yet self-approval is so much more agreeable to us than selfexamination, which, as Bacon says, 'is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive,'-that we are more ready to examine our neighbours than ourselves, and to rest satisfied with finding, or fancying, that we are better than they; forgetting that, even if it really is so, better does not always imply good; and that our course of duty is not like a race which is won by him who runs, however slowly, if the rest are still slower. It is this forgetfulness that causes bad examples to do much the greatest amount of evil among those who do not follow them. For, among the four kinds of bad examples that do us harmnamely, those we imitate those we proudly exult over-those which drive us into an opposite extreme-and those which lower our standard,-this last is the most hurtful. For one who is corrupted by becoming as bad as a bad example, there are ten that are debased by being content with being better. But though this observing of faults in another is thus 'sometimes improper for our case-and though, at any time, to dwell on the faults of another is wrong, yet in the case of a friend, though not of a stranger, we are perhaps ready to fall into the opposite error, of overlooking them altogether, or of defending them. Now, it is absolutely necessary to perceive and acknowledge them for, if we think ourselves bound to vindicate them in our friend, we shall not be very likely to condemn them in ourselves. Self-love, will, most likely, demand fair play, and urge that what is right in our friend is not wrong in us; and we shall have been perverting our own principles of morality; thus turning the friendship that might yield such 'fair fruit' into a baneful poison-tree. 'The two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment) follow the last fruit, which is, like the pomegranate, full of many kernels . . . . 'The manifold use of friendship.' One of these manifold uses of friendship is, the advantage, not noticed by Bacon, to be derived from a very, very discreet and pure-minded friend; that you may trust him to conceal from you some things which you had better not know. There are cases in which there is an advantage in knowing, and an advantage in not knowing; and the two cannot of course be combined, except by the thing being known to your other selfyour alter ipse,'-and kept back from you. For instance, a man may have done something amiss; your friend may say to him, 'I have not told my friend of this, and will not, provided you take care to discontinue the practice-to rectify what is done wrong,-to keep clear of any repetition, &c., as the case may be.' And he will be more encouraged to do so if he knows that your estimation of him is not as yet impaired. And yet such a person has need to be carefully looked after; which of course your friend will take care to do. And there are other cases also in which such a concealment will be advantageous. But of course one who can be so trusted must be, as has been said, one of consummate wisdom and integrity. It may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted, form together a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of old wood to take, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees. ESSAY XXVIII. OF EXPENSE. RICHES are for spending, and spending for honour and good actions therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion: for voluntary undoing' may be as well for a man's country as for the kingdom of heaven; but ordinary expense ought to be limited by a man's estate, and governed with such regard as it be within his compass; and not subject to deceit and abuse of servants; and ordered to the best show, that the bills may be less than the estimation abroad. Certainly, if a man will keep but of even hand, his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his receipts; and if he think to wax rich, but to the third part. It is no baseness for the greatest to descend and look into their own estate. Some forbear it, not upon negligence alone, but doubting to bring themselves into melancholy, in respect they shall find it broken but wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that cannot look into his own estate at all had need both chuse well those whom he employeth, and change them often; for new are more timorous and less subtle. He that can look into his estate but seldom, it behoveth him to turn all to certainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful in some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some other: as, if he be plentiful in diet, to be saving in apparel; if he be plentiful in the hall, to be saving in the stable, and the like; for he that is plentiful in expenses of all kinds, will hardly be preserved from decay. In clearing of a man's estate, he may as well hurt himself in being too sudden as in letting it run on too long, for hasty selling is commonly as disadvantageable as interest. Besides, he that clears at once will relapse, for, finding himself out of straits, he 'Undoing. Ruin. He that ventures to be a surety for another, ventures undoing for his sake.'-South. 2 As. That. See page 23. Wax. To grow; to become. See page 284. 4 Doubt. To fear. 'I doubt there's deep resentment in his mind.'-Otway. In respect. In case. "Disadvantageable. Disadvantageous. The said court had given a very aisadvantageable relation of three great farms.'-Addison. will revert to his customs; but he that cleareth by degrees induceth a habit of frugality, and gaineth as well upon his mind as upon his estate. Certainly, who' hath a state to repair may not despise small things: and, commonly, it is less dishonourable to abridge petty charges than to stoop to petty gettings. A man ought warily to begin charges which, once begun, will continue; but in matters that return not he may be more magnificent. ANNOTATIONS. 'Riches are for spending; and spending for honour.' For those who are above the poorest classes, the heaviest, or some of the heaviest expenses are, as Bacon expresses it, for honour-i. e. for the display of wealth. We do not, indeed, commonly speak of 'display of wealth' except when the wealth and the display of it are something unusually great. We speak rather of 'living in a decent or in a handsome style.' But this does certainly imply the purchase of many articles which we provide ourselves with because they are costly;—which are provided in order to be observed, and observed as costly; or, which comes to the same thing, because the absence of them would be observed as denoting shabbiness. For instance, a silver watch, or a gilt one, is as useful as a gold one; and beech or cherrytree makes as useful furniture as mahogany or rose-wood. And as for the mere gratification to the eye, of the superior beauty of these latter, this is, to persons of moderate means, no sufficient set-off against the difference of cost. Moreover, a bunch of wild flowers, or a necklace of crab's-eye-seeds, &c., are as pretty to look at, and as becoming, as jewels or coral; and if these latter were to become equally cheap, some other kind of decoration would be sought for, and prized on account of its known costliness. For, though people censure any one for making a display beyond his station, if he falls below it in what are considered 1 Who. He who. See page 90. I should be sorry to think such a wish absurd and presumptuous, or unlikely to be gratified. The highest enjoyment, doubtless, to the blest, will be the personal knowledge of their divine and beloved Master; yet I cannot but think that some part of their happiness will consist in an intimate knowledge of the greatest of his followers also; and of those of them in particular whose peculiar qualities are, to each, the most peculiarly attractive. 'In this world, again, our friendships are limited not only to those who live in the same age and country, but to a small portion even of those who are not unknown to us, and whom we know to be estimable and amiable, and who, we feel, might have been among our dearest friends. Our command of time and leisure to cultivate friendships, imposes a limit to their extent; they are bounded rather by the occupation of our thoughts, than of our affections. And the removal of such impediments in a better world, seems to me a most desirable, and a most probable change. 'I see no reason, again, why those who have been dearest friends on earth, should not, when admitted to that happy state, continue to be so, with full knowledge and recollection of their former friendship. If a man is still to continue (as there is every reason to suppose) a social Being, and capable of friendship, it seems contrary to all probability that he should cast off or forget his former friends, who are partakers with him of the like exaltation. He will, indeed, be greatly changed from what he was on earth, and unfitted perhaps for friendship with such a Being as one of us is Now; but his friend will have undergone (by supposition) a corresponding change. And as we have seen those who have been loving playfellows in childhood, grow up, if they grow up with good, and with like, dispositions, into still closer friendship in riper years, so also it is probable that when this our state of childhood shall be perfected, in the maturity of a better world, the like attachment will continue 'The same thought is beautifully expressed by one of the most excellent of sacred poets, the author of The Christian Year : That so, before the Judgment-seat, Though changed and glorified each face, For endless ages to embrace.' |