On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
quality when a wiser training shall have eradicated all the former ; 6 r is * ¦ courage * at last to be acknowledged as no more tbwifei beastly peculiarity ? Answer me , ye spurriers at the inevitable consequences and necessities of man ' s not being all brute I * The perils of Jack ' s life , and his characteristic oddities , hare been tho sole themes on which a sympathy with him , and curiosity regards ing him , have been excited . He is pitied or laughed at only on these points , and , apart from them , the common belief is , that his
term is nothing but jollity , ' swigging" the flowing can , ' chorusing clap-trap songs , and the everlasting reel and hornpipe ; he is attractive as a lusrus natures onl y- Now , the fact is , that the perils and difficulties about which we all become so sympathetic and generous to Jack are the things which least fret his existence ; if they come , they come ; if he can conquer or escape from them , why , so much
the better ; if not , his mind is made up to them ; or , at least , the forebodings of mischance do not cling to him with much sense of wretchedness . Truth , however , would make a dull book ; philosopher * only would turn its pages over ; and—ask the bookseller — ' Philosophy does not pay : ' he will point to his shelves , and show you loads of waste paper which his experience and fears have destined to the huckster ' butter , cheese , and candles .
Truth in these matters has had but few advocates . My aim is to direct the thoughts of others to a consideration of the existing evils , in the hope that remedies may be suggested , canvassed , and applied . The work is in progress , I thank God ; and when a deeper research is more numerously made , the obstacles which now arise fr om opinions in conflict , in the minds of sincere philanthropists , will be swept away . So far , however , as it regards the mariner ' s life , to amuse , not to amend , has been too much the
object of writers who have made life at sea their theme . Who has glanced at the common sailor ' s reality of interior ? To scrutinize these , and put forth the result of that scrutiny , would be deemed unpatriotic , disloyal , un-English , or the astringency of a discontented spirit . Worse than all , it would cause an eraporatloti of those exciting visions in which we have been fed and fosteTed
* Although the phraseology in which they are dressed would conceal it , the gist of all the arguments which 1 have ever heard or seen from objectors to edncktion amounts to these , and to nothing more , roost certainly , viz . : In one set il ia , « If you cultivate their minds , they will discover the shallowness of our pretensions fc > superiority . * In another it i « , ' If you teach them science and politics , and to reason , and to think , they won ' t mind their work : * which , translated , signifieih * they will not work jfcr us . ' With a third troop ( 1 think this is the fullest regiment ) il is , 1 you opeu their eyes we * hall no longer be able to cheat them securely . ' To ifea
correctness of none of these conclusions do I demur for an instant . But , I will ad «^ when the working man is taught all that can be learnt , though it be to probo the earth ' s centre kor to soar to the remotest star in the system , he will be most the roughl y convinced that ' the natural law / which teaching will make him coropp ** hend , love , and obey , with a vigorous and sound alacrity , ' is , that every one who desires to enjoy the pleasures of health , must expend in iabamr the energy whictf the Creator ha » infused into his limbs' And , moreover , « that met / he mm on * * < N * ilt no longer shun labour as rjiiufu l and ignominious , but resort to it a * a soufc * o /| Ae 4 sure and advantage /—Fide Combat Cvmttittttim o / Ma ^ p . & 7 , 5 # ,
Untitled Article
Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice . 417
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1835, page 417, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2646/page/53/
-