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Untitled Article
, In the next place , it becomes every man who pretends to the character of a patriot to set his face against the peculiar , reigning vices of the times . Instead of treating them with indulgence , and bending towards them , we should bend from them ; and , regardless of the imputation of singularity , give our manners an opposite cast . Is luxurious expense the vice of the times ? The patriot will do nothing to spread and increase it . He will not enlarge the catalogue of necessaries ; he will not introduce late hours and artificial manners where they have not yet penetrated ; nor dazzle and
debauch with Asiatic luxury the inhabitants of the peaceful village . The man or the woman who has brought into a thriving , industrious town one new mode of expense , or brought them acquainted with one fashionable folly they were before ignorant of , is a bad patriot . He who has made marriage difficult , has virtually encouraged licentiousness : he is a bad patriot . He who , in pursuit of health or pleasure , has visited a sequestered hamlet , simple , innocent , laborious , whose employments , and hours , and taste of life were agreeable to nature , and by his own vices or those of his . domestics has left them the feverish thirst of fashion , and introduced the
softness and debility of artificial life , has thrown a serpent among their flowers , and poisoned the salutary springs at which he has . refreshed his thirst . Such a one is a bad patriot ; nor will the pleasing elegance of his own manners , nor even his ready and liberal charities , atone for the mischief he has done them . Misery sits in the skirts , of splendour ; and the pomps and gaieties of the rich occasion more wants than all their alms and hospi-i tals can relieve .
Choose your employment , if circumstances allow you to exercise such a preference , with a view to public utility . Every employment by which money is got is not equally useful or honourable : there are some which administer directly to the vices of mankind , and these are in their very nature unlawful ; others indirectly ; these a man of nice and delicate honour would wish to avoid , and will prefer those employments in which , while he gains his own bread , he is giving it to . others , in which he feels that he is filling up sortie useful department , and doing good either to the minds or the bodies of his fellow-citizens . As to that class who are precluded from ,
choice , such is the disposition of Providence , that their employments are generally useful without it . The poor man who raises food out of the earth , or performs the necessary services of life , may boast of a usefulness , if not extensive , at least apparent and unequivocal . He has nothing to do but to consecrate his daily labours , to quicken that industry which is necessary for his own support , by the consideration that it contributes to the support of the community ; to ennoble every employment aud every relation in , which he may be placed by viewing them as so many several means of benefiting
society at large . The virtue and industry of the lower orders , like the stones which lay the foundation of a noble building , though hid from sight , form the broad basis of national prosperity . It is from them that public spirit , when it languishes among the higher orders , is from time to time renewed ; it is among them that are kept in action our natural powers , natural and simple tastes . They are the original sources of strength and power , aud among them it ultimately rests ; from among them are continually drawn fresh streams of health and vigour to supply the exhausted families of the great and the luxurious , without which supply society itself would be threatened with extinction . Respectable and happy man , whoever you are , who , amidst the bosom of poverty , have brought into existence and educated ia habits of industry and virtue a numerous and healthy offspring , and borne a burden which others , perhaps , in happier circumstances , through too selfish ,
Untitled Article
A Discourse , by Mrs . Barbauld . 365
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1828, page 365, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2561/page/5/
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