St. John's lines in the Essay on the Influence of
Great Cities (the worst in the volume,) is "The very name of
London sounds sweetly to me." This is not a whit better than
the man who thought "no garden like Covent Garden, and no
flower like a cauliflower." Captain Morris's "sweet shady side
of Pall Mall," compared to these sentiments, is a piece of
delicious refinement.
_Love of Pleasure_.--The cause why men visit each other and converse,
abstracting all considerations of business, seems to be simply the love of
pleasure. This is the passion truly universal; this is the pivot upon
which the world intellectual, as well as the world of sense, turns.
Philosophers and saints feel it in their speculations and devotions, and
yield to it too, in their way, as completely as the Sybaritish gourmand,
whose stomach is his Baal and Ashtaroth. Nor is this at all surprising, in
reality, for the gratification of this passion is _happiness_--a gem
for which all the world search, and but few find.
_Conversation_.--The persons who shine most in conversation are,
perhaps, those who attack established opinions and usages; for there is a
kind of splendid Quixotism in standing up, even in the advocating of
absurdity, against the whole world.
_Love_.--Do we imagine, when we open some new treatise on Love, that
the author has discovered a fresh vein, and mined more deeply than all
former adventurers? Not at all: we know very well that the little god has
already usurped all beautiful epithets, all soft expressions, all
bewitching sounds; and the utmost we expect from the skill of the writer
is, that he has thrown all these together, so as to produce a new picture.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35