The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

From the Craftsman.
AND last night I communed with myself, saying
Even as the smoke from a tobacco pipe, or
the words which a speaker, make the use of
so insubstantial. so empty is life.
And thus to my self I continued soliloquizing:
Long have I doted upon thee, and have fed thee
with the good things of this world, and have kept
thee warm with many bumpers.
Have I not dressed thee out to all advantage; Have
I not often beheld thee in the looking glass with
satisfaction ?
And at last I have got it out; that set all my fond-
ness for thee, thou art a being not worth taking any
pains about...........Woe, woe, woe be to all ye sons of
folly called self lovers.
Man is not born for himself.....if he was. why
should he be fond of society ? If he had power from
himself, why does he continually crave the assistance
of others ?
Now it came to pass that I dreamed a dream,
and methought Myself thus answered me, saying,
Hearken unto reason, oh master ! and let prudence
for once be director of thy thoughts.
Was I intended to be any more than a mere ex-
istence in common with the rest of the world ?......
but you was so fond of self, that you would act un-
commonly by me.
Did you not fancy,I was very wise ; and have
you not made me talk till I have been laughed at ?
Did you not force me to pretend to things I could
not perform ?.....Have you not said I have achieved
things I was never able to undertake ?
And you told me I was so handsome. that it must
make my fortune with the ladies..........And did you
not tell me, that women of fashion would fall in love
with me ?
Yet had I connections with any. but women of
the town ? and was I not always their dupe.
Yet did you not at these times take pains to tell
people I was in grand keeping, when at the same
time, I was trudging in a Monmouth street suit.
upon the look out where to sponge a dinner ?
But so it is in almost every pericranium, vanity
has furnished out a first floor, and where he entertains
herself in her looking glass apartment.
One man shall be born to be Right Honourable.
and immediately in his pupillage, vanity tells him
that every body below him are mob, only fit to be
kick'd, knock'd down; made bankrupts of, or de-
bauc'd ; and no people should eat and drink to please
their own palates. but people of quality.
The Collegian shall be whispered by vanity. that
to be a scholar is the greatest perfection in the world.
and that he is the greatest scholar in it ; and treats
the rest of the world with a haughtiness accordingly.
And behold a third bears a commission and he
demands mechanics to bow down to his cockade, and
all the fine girls of fortune to beckon him, saying...
my dear Captain, come, catch me.
And a fourth shall be a man who has raised him-
self by ways and means, or by mean ways, and he
shall be callous to the cries of beauty in distress ; and
he shall say, what is a fine woman to five per cent ?
and he shall turn up his nose at genius, at the labours
of artists, and the discoveries of ingenuity ; and he
shall say these are poor dogs...their works for. what
I know may be clever. but I would not take their
words for six pence.
Thus it is with the generality of the world, each
thinks his own taste the best, and he the best man in
it. Despising those beneath -him, flattering those
above him, hating, envying, backbiting his equals, and
fearing nothing so much as plain dealing.
Pride occasions a number of unnecessary wants, false
appetites, and foolish desires, and we are pain'd more
by fictitious necessities than real ones ; for we are
always in the state of a big bellied woman, in a long-
ing condition.