PLEASURE
MANY young people adopt pleasures, for which they have
not the least taste, only because they are called by that name. They often
mistake so totally, as to imagine that debauchery is pleasure. Drunkenness,
which is equally destructive to body and mind, is certainly a fine pleasure!
Gaming, which draws us into a thousand scrapes, leaves us penniless, and gives us
the air and manners of an outrageous madman, is another most exquisite
pleasure!
Pleasure is the rock which most young
people split upon; they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but
without a compass to direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the
vessel; therefore pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their
voyage.
A man of pleasure, in the vulgar
acceptation of that phrase, means only a beastly drunkard, an abandoned rake,
and profligate swearer. We should weigh the present enjoyment of our pleasures
against the unavoidable consequence of them, and then let our common sense
determine the choice.
We may enjoy the pleasures of the table
and the wine, but stop short of the pains inseparably annexed to an excess in
either. We may let other people do as they will, without formally and
sententiously rebuking them for it; but we must be firmly resolved not to
destroy our own faculties and constitution, in compliance with those who have
no regard to their own. We may play to give us pleasure, but not to give us
pain; we may play for trifles in mixed companies, to amuse ourselves, and
conform to custom. Good company are not fond of having a man reeling drunk
among them; nor is it agreeable to see another tearing his hair and
blaspheming, for having lost at play more than he is able to pay; or a rake,
with half a nose, crippled by coarse and infamous debauches. Those who practice
and brag of these things make no part of good company; and are most
unwillingly, if ever, admitted into it. A real man of fashion and pleasure
observes decency; at least he neither borrows nor affects vices; and if he is
so unfortunate as to have any, he gratifies them with choice, delicacy, and
secrecy.
We should be as attentive to our pleasures
as to our studies. In the latter we should observe and reflect upon all we
read; and in the former, be watchful and attentive to every thing we see and
hear; and let us never have it to say, as some fools do, of things that were
said and done before their faces, “That, indeed, they did not mind them,
because they were thinking of something else.” Why were they thinking of
something else? And if they were, why did they come there? Wherever we are, we
should (as it is vulgarly expressed) have our ears and eyes about us. We should
listen to everything that is said, and see everything that is done. Let us observe,
without being thought observers; for otherwise people will be upon their guard
before us.
All gaming, field-sports, and such other
amusements, where neither the understanding nor the senses have the least
share, are frivolous, and the resources of little minds, who either do not
think or do not love to think. But the pleasures of a man of parts either
flatter the senses or improve the mind.
There are liberal and illiberal pleasures,
as well as liberal and illiberal arts. Sottish drunkenness, indiscriminate
gluttony, driving coaches, rustic sports, such as fox-chases, horse-races,
etc., are infinitely below the honest and industrious profession of a tailor
and a shoemaker.
The more we apply to business, the more we
relish our pleasures; the exercise of the mind in the morning, by study, whets
the appetite for the pleasures of the evening, as the exercise of the body
whets the appetite for dinner. Business and pleasure, rightly understood,
mutually assist each other,—instead of being enemies, as foolish or dull people
often think them. We cannot taste pleasures truly, unless we can relish them by
previous business; and few people do business well, who do nothing else. But,
when I speak of pleasures, I always mean the elegant pleasures of a rational
being, and not the brutal ones of a swine.
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