PUBLIC PLACES.
Under this head I rank all those places, which are open to an indiscriminate resort of company. There seems at present such a rage for pleasure, that when adversity does not call home the thoughts, the whole day is mostly spent in preparations and plans, or in actual dissipation. Solitude appears insupportable, and domestic comfort stupid. And though the amusements may not always be relished, the mind is so enervated it cannot exert itself to find out any other substitute. An immoderate fondness for dress is acquired, and many fashionablefemales spend half the night in going from one place to another to display their finery, repeat commonplace compliments, and raise envy in their acquaintance whom they endeavour to outshine. Women, who are engaged in those scenes, must spend more time in dress than they ought to do, and it will occupy their thoughts when they should be better employed.
In the fine Lady how few traits do we observe of those affections which dignify human nature! If she has any maternal tenderness, it is of a childish kind. We cannot be too careful not to verge on this character; thoughshe lives many years she is still a child in understanding, and of so little use to society, that her death would scarcely be observed.
Dissipation leads to poverty, which cannot be patiently borne by those who have lived on the vain applause of others, on account of outward advantages; these were the things they imagined of most consequence, and of course they are tormented with false shame, when by a reverse of fortune they are deprived of them.
A young innocent girl, when she first enters into gay scenes, finds herspirits so raised by them, that she would often be lost in delight, if she was not checked by observing the behaviour of a class of females who attend those places. What a painful train of reflections do then arise in the mind, and convictions of the vice and folly of the world are prematurely forced on it. It is no longer a paradise, for innocence is not there; the taint of vice poisons every enjoyment, and affectation, though despised, is very contagious. If these reflections do not occur, languor follows the extraordinary exertions, and weak minds fall a prey to imaginary distress, to banish which they are obliged to take as a remedy what produced the disease.
We talk of amusements unbending the mind; so they ought; yet even in the hours of relaxation we are acquiring habits. A mind accustomed to observe can never be quite idle, and will catch improvement on all occasions. Our pursuits and pleasures should have the same tendency, and every thing concur to prepare us for a state of purity and happiness. There vice and folly will not poison our pleasures; our faculties will expand; and not mistake their objects; and we shall no longer “see as through a glass darkly, but know, even as we are known.”
FINIS.
FINIS.
FINIS.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTESP.97, changed “is was sufficient” to “it was sufficient”.Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
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