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Untitled Article
man to noble distinction ? Tn the majority of names , oppression , fraud , blood , rapine , murder . No matter what have been tlie means , if success crown a toil ( toil !) with wealth or titles , the means are forgotten in the worship which is ever paid to the successful . I appeal to the actual practice of society , not to the fictions in which society is educated , for there morality is fiction . One thing is told but its
opposite is taught . Lessons of disinterestedness and natural integrity , are verbalized to every child , but examples teach , and the lessons of example are * make money—advance yourself in appearances —get on m the world . What I have said to you . about riches being the source of all evil , gold only dross in comparison with virtue and integrity , and all that , is very pretty ; you'll be thought amiable and upright if you have the sentences at command , and utter
them occasionally , and they will assist you amazingly on the other road . ' This is never said—no , none but a ' madman * would say it , for he would be scouted from society for holding such sentiments—I mean for talking them ; but it is shown—it is acted upon—it is feltit is in the blood—it is done . Where is the morality—who so
virtuous in England —( if there be such a man , depend on it he is in the lazaretto of society )—as to refuse the call or card of the" millionaire who has sweated his wealth by every cunning he could devise , by every legalized rascality—base chicanery , all on the safe side of the law , —though from the tears , the groans , the vitals , and heart ' s blood of hundreds , who have shrunk and withered to death under his
grasp ? * They are not aware that he has done any of these things / They are—they do know it—the fact , that he is merely reported , or suspected , himself , in his own life , to have accumulated such masses of wealth , is proof that some of these practices have been employed in the
accumulation . Somebody ' s ruin has been effected by it , and perhaps designedly . Not known ! Print the tale ih fire , and it will be remembered as a yesterday ' s advertisement for a lost lapdog . None but the loser and finder are much affected by that . Who among this fictitiously moral nation wouW not wish their friends and acquaintances might call whilj-K ^ m card was opportunely and conspicuously visible on the tables
But , to return ; I was not consulted in the choice of my parents , but I prefer my father to any man whom political cunning or soldierly daring has ever exalted to wealth , titles , and honours . The soldier is fired by the hope of victory ' s laudations—the reward of glory . The blaze of reputation for courage ; the prospects of spoil ; the fear of disgrace arms him ; the electric fluid strikes him through thousands who are linked together by one chain ; he is -whirled along by a
temporary insanity ; he calls it enthusiasm in the cause ; it is the wild and ungovernable excitement of the moment ; he would as often flee with the coward , as plunge into destruction , and bound along with the madly rash and impetuous . The warrior perils his life , to destroy life ; he confronts dangers in seeking victims ; he wades to triumph
through blood . But there is an intrepidity superior to any and all of these ; there is a courage and magnanimity , compared with winch all that the soldier or martial chief ever displayed is but paste to the purest diamond , an agitated duck-pond to a continuous stream of rippling brightness . It is that which generous humanity inspires ; the isolated intrepidity , which , of its own innate and noble impulses ,
Untitled Article
Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice . 325
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1833, page 325, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2614/page/37/
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