The Northern Star, And Constitutionalist

FARMERS' AND MECHANICS' ADVOCATE

RESPECTABILITY.

We apprehend that there is no one thing that occasions more misery in this world than this wrong meaning that has been given to this one word "respectability." What is respectability? Is it being a lawyer, a doctor, a merchant, or a minister? Does it consist in wearing the best broadcloth, or in being able to dance gracefully, or jabber French fluently? Assuredly not. All these may and do exist, and yet their possessors are as far from being respectable as they are from being useful members of society—which by the way is as far as you can possibly get by way of comparison. True respectability consists in adorning the situation in life in which Providence has placed us—in striving with all assiduity to make ourselves wiser and better—in doing all that is in our power to enhance our own happiness and the happiness of our fellow beings. The man who by his honest industry gains himself and family a comfortable subsistence by tilling the soil, is far more respectable than the lawyer who has amassed his thousands by grinding the face of the poor, and wrenching from the hands of the unfortunate his only support in the shape of fees, or the doctor who prescribes his nostrums which often kill than cure, or the merchant whose worthless limbs are covered with costly apparel. Men form false estimates from outward appearances—it is not outward show, nor costly apparel, nor difference of calling that make men respectable. There is a certain class in society—mere butterflies, who it is true lay claim to respectability, and who affect to treat the common people—those who do not choose to deck their persons in gaudy attire, and spend their time in idle frivolity and senseless mirth—with great indifference. But when we become acquainted with these creatures, we shall look upon them with very different feelings than those of envy. We shall view them with pity and contempt—pity because they thus effectually by their folly blot out of existence the mind, the soul, that only principle in them which can afford lasting happiness, and make them useful in the world in which they are permitted to stay; to live, such beings do not—and contempt, that those who have the power thus to make themselves really happy and useful, should thus render themselves complete drones; yes, complete nuisances in society.

Let the honest farmer and mechanic content himself, and act consistently with this reflection, that they are doing more for the good of their country, for mankind, and their own happiness while engaged in their useful employments, than a host of indolent lawyers, ignorant doctors, or insolvent merchants, and let them teach these things diligently to their children, and we shall see less gilded poverty—fewer brainless dandies—fewer effeminate and useless females, and more true respectability than we now meet with.

[Maine Free Press.