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
Compared with the poor philosopher , the bishop ( who ought to he his cordial fellow-labourer , not his costly lord ) compatea with thi * patient endurer of privation , this practical expounder of the precept which says , * " Take no thought for the morrow , " compared with him the bishop is a Sybarite ; and he must , according
to even Lord Melbourne , have an income to enable him to sport the trappings of rank , and cope with the fools of fashion . These men , then , present in the strongest possible point of view the two species of discontent . The one , with personally much to endure and little to enjoy , feels that noble discontent which arises out of a review of the injustice of social arrangements ; the
other , with much personal enjoyment and little suffering , is dead to the necessity for reform , though alive to that contemptible discontent which badges gross selfishness and little-mindedness—a dish ill-dressed at his dinner , a spring out of order in his carriage , a slight from some conventional superior the light of whose countenance he coveted ; these he shall feel—these he shall be moved by , perhaps to emotions of anger and distress ,
while the leviathan calamities of the people he leaves unnoted or unregarded . The improvement of the world will be proportioned to the extension of that political discontent which leads a human being to look abroad upon the wide-spreading evils of society , and feel that * non-exertiou in aid of their reform is a reproach upon his -character as a man , and unfits him for the social brotherhood ,
which nw > ves him to put his hand to the mighty scythe which is to mow dawn the mischiefs which ignorance has planted , and shallow self-interest cultivated to their present enormous growth . But inasmuch as political discontent will thus move like a purifying wind before which plague and pestilence will depart , personal discontent will ever be a virus infecting " , by means of minute punctures , individual homes and habits , with disease .
Many and mighty as are the ills of life ; it is not under those of greatest magnitude that character and happiness sink . The repeated infliction of petty , grating , corroding annoyances , do more mischief than severe misfortunes . Moral strength is often * as vainly opposed to these contemptible yet continual assaults as the
rock to the unceasing surge—both get gradually worn away , and , if they still stand , it is as melancholy spectacles of decaying aod degraded greatness . Vast calamities destroy , petty malignities deform , and instead of dying at once and greatly , we live on with all our better nature crucified , till we present a mere monument of the humanity we might have been . These remarks apply to all the meaner passions which irritate ,
sometimes annihilate , fine natures , like the insect which destroyed the Hartz forests ; but to few are they more pertinent than to that selfish , worrying discontent , which 1 am so anxious to point out to condemnation . What an one-sided analysis it exercises—how
Untitled Article
688 Political and JPersotutl Discontent .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 632, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/44/
-