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CONTENTMENT.
There is perhaps no sounder or more generally
acknowledged axiom than that the value of a thing
is in proportion to its scarcity. This may be one
great reason why contentment has found such
favor in the eyes of the multitude; every one setting
the highest value on what he had not, and
indifferent to the praise which might be bestowed
upon its virtues and efficacy, so long as he knew
his neighbor no richer than himself. Thus it is,
that this thing, whose intrinsic value (except in a
very limited degree,) is not worth a cent, has, as a
regularly be-praised subject, equalled even Shakspeare's
Works, Warren's blacking, or La Fayette.
Now I mean to say that as far as the share contentment
has in the enjoyment a man feels in eating
his dinner, smoking his cigar, or, after his daily
labor enjoying the comforts of his fire-side, it is a
good; but, I also say, that taken in any extended
content is to be satisfied—to wish for nothing—to
aim at nothing, but to rest satisfied in whatever
situation you may be placed. Now look at the
world as it exists; you will find little or no such
thing, and well it is so. What is it that freights
the ships—beautifies the cities—encourages the
arts, and promotes the wealth, intelligence, and
importance of a free and enterprising nation? Assuredly
not contentment. It is a passive principle.
and, as such, man can have little sympathy with
it. He is an active animal. His pleasures lie not so
much in the possession as the pursuit. Is the merchant
happier when, quitting the din and bustle of
the city, his ships, his freights, and his speculations
he hastens to the enjoyment of rural life, purchases
a beautiful villa, and looking around him, says
within himself “I am content.” Is he so? no
such thing! He must still busy himself with the
news, the business, and the exchanges; or, let him
look at home, every thing is wrong, every thing
wants improving—a part of his house is misbuilt—
his walks are badly laid out, or a clump of trees
spoils his prospect. These are mended, and this
gives rise to new wants, and fresh improvements.
So he goes on, and dies at last amid all the mighty
bustle attendant on the planting of an orchard—
Perhaps the best personification of contentment
is a fat London Alderman, seated, after a plentiful
dinner, in his easy chair—his wine before him
—his pipe—his optics half closed, and not an idea
in his brain of either past, present, or future. It is
rather to be remarked that it is always confined to
“fat, gross men.” Contentment and corpulency go
hand in hand. There is no analogy between it and
leanness. A thin contented man is quite a paradox.
Now look at its effects upon human nature. Where
is it that all your bold, fiery, active, daring, enterprising
spirits are to be found? Is it among your
men of bone and muscle, or your men of fat and
oil? how many fat men are there on record that
have ever done a daring deed? Cæsar disliked
Cassius for his want of the aldermanic characteristics.
“That Cassius is too thin,” he exclaims,—
and again, “although I fear him not, would he
were fatter.”
Had Milton been a contented man, think ye the
world would have been in possession of Paradise
Lost. Had Byron been so, would he have written
Childe Harold? Would a contented man have
painted the Cartoons; or, had Columbus been so,
would he have been the discoverer of America?
No! were contentment to become in any degree
over all the active principles of our nature. Can it
be supposed that such a lethargic thing and the
lofty aspirations of genius could exist in the same
person? No! the nonsense of contentment and
a cottage is prettier in the pages of poetry than
it would be useful in actual life. Look at its
effects upon nations. Was the free and fiery Spartan,
or the noble Roman, famed for it? Or, to
come to modern times, is it not notorious that
it is to be found in the greatest degree among the
degraded serfs of a Russian autocrat? there is not
in the world a more contented class of men, or who
have less wish to change their situations than the
Russian peasantry. It does and can only exist
with ignorance, and where man is free and in possession
of his active faculties it flies from him.
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