CHAP. LXIII. Of the power of the Imagination over young minds— instanced in George Hopewell. The man that once did sell the lion's skin SHAKSPEARE. THE Communicated experience of those who have observantly performed the voyage of life, might be used as a glass for the young to look through; but too often they scornfully reject this unflattering glass, and trust to the delusive vision of their own optics. They launch out upon a perilous sea without chart or compass, without experience of their own, and utterly indisposed to being guided by the experience of others. In the season of youth, the imagination often runs away with the judgment. A young man gifted with a warm imagination, but whose judgment is immature for want of experience, views things through a deceptious perspective. His throbbing head teems with flattering visions. Every thing that may turn to his own favor, he takes for granted, and every untoward incident, on the contrary, that may chance to thwart and disappoint him, he leaves out of his calculations. A bold adventurer in the lottery of life, he feels quite sure of drawing a prize; and his too great confidence is the very means of turning him up a blank. For, as on the one hand, it prevents that care and circumspection in business which is necessary to success, so, on the other, it leads him to square his expenses not to his real circumstances, but to his visionary prospects. George Hopewell, a goodly youth, took in a decent cargo of ideas for the voyage of life, but forgot to take with him a single idea of meeting with adverse winds and misadventures. He was neither a simpleton nor an ignoramus. An honest heart had he, and a brain rather fertile than barren. He was weak in one particular only:—he was inclined to believe every thing that he found written in the Chronicles of the Imagina tion. In short, none was more skilled in building aerial castles; an art, which, though it always gives pleasure to the artist, very seldom brings him profit. Thus equipped with mental stores, and furnished also with some cash, Hopewell begins business. He begins on a large scale, and naturally enough; for who, with a warm and pregnant imagination, could bear to be Occupied with small things? His great stock in trade, the most of which he had taken on credit, he now views with rapture "All this is worth and its profits from the first turn, will increase it to the sum of Well, I can turn it seven times in seven years, and shall then be worth full thirty thousand dollars clear to myself."-Hopewell, so rich in prospective funds, feels as if he had this wealth all in hand, and comes quite up to the reasonable expenses of a man already worth thirty thousand dollars. A worm may penetrate and sink a ship, as effectually as the ball of a cannon.-Hopewell met with no uncommon gust of adversity. Nothing did he lose by fire and water, and not much by bad debts; yet his circumstances grew more and more narrow year by year, till, in less than seven years, he became insolvent to a considerable amount. All this was owing, or principally owing, to one single circumstance-living upon prospects, his outgoes constantly exceeded his incomes. If, instead of being led away by the sorceress Imagination, he had all along conformed his management and the expenses of his living to his real circumstances, he might have had, if not wealth, at least competence.-Many a promising and fine young man has been upset, by carrying more sail than his bark and his ballast could bear. And here permit me to offer a serious caution against running rashly and deeply in debt-a ruinous impru dence, to which all the numerous, and, in some points, respectable, family of the Hopewells, are exceedingly prone. It is no new remark, and yet not the worse for wear, that multitudes are undone as to their worldly affairs by viewing things at a distance. * Most readers will recollect a paragraph in one of the papers of the British Spectator, very like to this. It is thus the inconsiderate and sanguine deceive themselves when they contract heavy debts. Viewing the thing at a distance-at a distance of time-they view it in a false mirror. In the days of our youth, and, as to many of us, even up to the days of our old age, we are apt to feel as if we should be abundantly able to pay a debt six months or a year hence. Imagination furnishes us with ways and means in abundance for the future, though we have none for the present. Only give us a long pay day, and we can do this, or we can do that. But the wheel of time presently brings round the six months, or the twelvemonth, or the yet longer period. It vanishes like a dream: and the debtor, failing in his calculations, if he calculated at all, is quite as unable to pay as he was at the instant the contract was made. He is now in the hands of his creditor, who can spare, or ruin him, as he pleases. Running in debt is a serious business, which, if proper caution be wanting, jeapordizes not only property, but character also, and personal freedom. Of those who have been adventurous and rash in this respect, how many have been utterly ruined in estate? How many have lost their credit and reputation? How many have forfeited the character for truth and integrity, to which they once had been fairly entitled? How many, prompted by the violent temptations arising out of their embarrassed circumstances, have acted in a manner astonishing to all who knew them in their better days? Credit, so invaluable to all who are in any reputable kind of business, and especially to those who have little else to depend upon, is of a delicate and frail nature; it must be used with moderation, or it languishes and dies. A man disposed at all times to extend his credit as far as he possibly.can, or take up all the credit he can get, has many chances to one, of being a bankrupt in credit as well as in circumstances. A word to spirited young men a word that will apply fully as well to a great many who are not young. If credit, long credit be offered you-pause awhile ere ye swallow the bait. Calculate the thing on all sides, and in all its bearings-its mischances, as well as its chances.-Credit, long credit, with interest. terest! "There's the rub." devourer; it eats like a canker. With in This same interést is a CHAP. LXIV. Of the almost insuperable power of Habit. THE Brazilians, had been so long and so generally inured to the abominable practice of eating human flesh, that the Christian Missionaries found it less difficult to reform them of any other of their evil practices than of this. The chief joy of those savages was in their cannibal feasts; the women and the children, as well as the men, partaking of them with equal delight; insomuch that nothing was harder of cure than this unnatural appetite. Mr. Southey, in his history of Brazil, relates a story of the following tenor: No very long time after the Portuguese had obtained possession of Brazil, a Jesuit undertook to christianize a Brazilian woman of great age. He catechised her, he instructed her, as he conceived, in the nature of christianity; and finding her at the point of death, he began to inquire whether there was any kind of food which she could take. "Grandam," said he, (that being the word of courtesy by which it was usual to address old women) "if I were to get you a little sugar now, or a mouthful of some of our nice things which we get from beyond the sea, do you think you could eat it?"-" Ah, my grandson," replied the old woman, "my stomach goes against every thing. There is but one thing which I think I could touch. If I had the little hand of a little tapua boy, I think I could pick the little bones ;-but woe is me, there is no` one to go out and shoot one for me!" As this extraordinary morsel of history corroborates an observation not unfrequently made, that, with some of the pagans amongst whom christian missionaries have laboured, cannibalism has been found the most incurable of any of their vices; at the same time it strikingly exemplifies, generally, the almost incurable nature of inveterate vicious habits. It is a counterpart to that portion of inspiration which represents it as extremely difficult, and next to impossible, for one that is accustomed to do evil, to learn to do well. It is a proverbial saying, that habit is second nature; meaning, I conceive, that whatever of taste, appetite, inclination, or affection we acquire by habit, it becomes as natural to us as if it were born with us. This is a thing obvious to general experience and observation. But there is one other thing similar to it, which, though not quite so obvious, is perhaps equally true. It is this: the second nature that has grown out of evil habits cleaves to us, in some degree, as long as we live, and that notwithstanding principles of real piety at heart. It is freely admitted that the Grandain, whose strange story has just been rehearsed, was merely a nominal christian, and but very imperfectly instructed in even the doctrinal knowledge of our holy religion. But suppose the reverse of this; suppose she had become a christian indeed: What then? No doubt she would have abhorred the idea of shooting a tapua boy, that she might pick the little bones of his little hand. No doubt she would have abhorred cannibalism as a monstrous crime but it is not quite so certain that her appetite would at all times have been entirely free front desiring the unnatural food to which she had been so long accustomed, and which, of all things, was the most deli cious to her taste, The truth is, any one who contracts bad habits, admits into his garrison inveterate and restless foes, which he can never entirely expel. Sometimes he may seem to get a complete mastery of them, when, of a sudden, they muster anew their rebellious forces and quite overpower him. Or even though, by the force of moral and religious principle, along with ever-wakeful vigilance, he keeps under these foes, yet they give him incessant alarm, inquietude and vexation. They are the torment of his life, and embitter his last moments. In many a virtuous bosom there is a hard struggle, between principle and propensity; between a deep sense of duty, morality and religion, and the violence of ap |
