Joseph Addison

“ This nobleman has since very frequently made his addresses to me with honour, but I have as often refused them; as well knowing, that familiarity and marriage will make him, on some ill-natured occasion, call all I said in the arbour a theatrical action. Besides that, I glory in contemning a man who had thoughts to my dishonour. And if this method were the imitation of the whole sex, innocence would be the only dress of beauty; and all affectation by any other arts to please the eyes of men, would be banished to the stews for ever. ”

“ For this reason I made my late excursion to Oxford, where those qualities appear in their highest lustre, and are the only pretences to honour and distinction: superiority is there given in proportion to men's advancement in wisdom and learning; and that just rule of life is so universally received among those happy people, that you shall see an earl walk bareheaded to the son of the meanest artificer, in respect to seven years more worth and knowledge than the nobleman is possessed of. In other places they bow to men's fortunes, but here to their understandings. ”

“ Gatty's love is a shining quick flame; Frontlet's a slow wasting fire. Gatty likes the man that diverts her; Frontlet him who adores her. Gatty always improves the soil in which she travels; Frontlet lays waste the country. Gatty does not only smile, but laughs at her lover; Frontlet not only looks serious, but frowns at him. All the men of wit (and coxcombs their followers) are professed servants of Gatty: the politicians and pretenders give solemn worship to Frontlet. Their reign will be best judged of by its duration. Frontlet will never be chosen more; and Gatty is a toast for life. ”

“ PLUME. On the contrary, the very topping fellows were ever after of opinion, that no man who deserved that character, could serve as a second, without fighting; and the Smarts and Modishes finding their account in it, the humour took without opposition.
Mr. SAGE. Pray, Colonel, how long did that fashion continue?
Col. PLUME, Not long neither, Mr. Sage; for as soon as it became a fashion, the very topping fellows thought their honour reflected upon, if they did not proffer themselves as seconds when any of their friends had a quarrel; so that sometimes there were a dozen of a side. ”

“ Can you think of destroying the labour of a whole life, the purpose of a long education, for the base service of a sudden appetite, to throw one that loves you, that dotes on you, out of the company and road of all that is virtuous and praiseworthy? Have I taken in all the instructions of piety, religion, and reason, for no other end, but to be the sacrifice of lust, and abandoned to scorn? Assume yourself, my lord, and do not attempt to vitiate a temple sacred to innocence, honour, and religion. ”

“ But I must confess, when I consider what I am going about, and run over in my imagination all the endless crowd of men of honour who will be offended at such a discourse, I am undertaking, methinks, a work worthy an invulnerable hero in romance, rather than a private gentleman with a single rapier; but as I am pretty well acquainted by great opportunities with the nature of man, and know of a truth, that all men fight against their will, the danger vanishes, and resolution rises upon this subject. ”

“ I shall not trouble you with my sentiments, till I know how they will be received; and as I know no reason why difference of sex should make our language to each other differ from the ordinary rules of right reason, I shall affect plainness and sincerity in my discourse to you, as much as other lovers do perplexity and rapture. Instead of saying, 'I shall die for you,' I profess I should be glad to lead my life with you: you are as beautiful, as witty, as prudent, and as good-humoured, as any woman breathing ”

“ But Cupid is not only blind at present, but dead-drunk, he has lost all his faculties: else how should Celia be so long a maid with that agreeable behaviour? Corinna, with that uprightly wit? Lesbia, with that heavenly voice? And Sacharissa, with all those excellences in one person, frequent the park, the play, and murder the poor tits that drag her to public places, and not a man turn pale at her appearance? ”

“ Till seeing four volumes of writings—the collected edition of the Tatler—pretended to be mine, and a serious philosopher's name prefixed to papers as free from my solidity as they are full of wit, I thought it high time to vindicate myself, and give the world a taste of my writings; for I am now persuaded 'twill be more for my reputation to convince than to despise mankind. ”

“ How does he, while he is absent from thence, consider in his imagination the breadth of his porter's shoulders, the spruce nightcap of his valet, the ready attendance of his butler! Any of all whom he knows she admits, and professes to approve of. This, alas! is the gallantry; this the freedom of our fine gentlemen: for this they preserve their liberty, and keep clear of that bugbear, marriage. But he does not understand either vice or virtue, who will not allow, that life without the rules of morality is a wayward uneasy being, with snatches only of pleasure ”

“ You laugh, gentlemen: but consider yourselves (you common people that were never in love) and compare yourselves in good humour with yourselves out of humour, and you will then acknowledge, that all external objects affect you according to the disposition you are in to receive their impressions, and not as those objects are in their own nature. How much more shall all that passes within his view and observation, touch with delight a man who is prepossessed with successful love, which is an assemblage of soft affections, gay desires, and hopeful resolutions? ”

“ I have this day received a letter subscribed "Fidelia," that gives me an account of an enchantment under which a young lady suffers, and desires my help to exorcise her from the power of the sorcerer. Her lover is a rake of sixty; the lady a virtuous woman of twenty-five: her relations are to the last degree afflicted, and amazed at this irregular passion: their sorrow I know not how to remove, but can their astonishment; for there is no spirit in woman half so prevalent as that of contradiction, which is the sole cause of her perseverance. ”

“ Thus it is, that it avails nothing that you are a bountiful master; that you are so generous as to reward even the unsuccessful with honour and riches; that no laudable action passes unrewarded in your kingdoms; that you have searched all nations for obscure merit; in a word, that you are in your private character endowed with every princely quality, when all this is subjected to unjust and ill-taught ambition, which to the injury of the world, is gilded by those endowments. ”

“ Freeland demands me for a jointure which he thinks deserves me; Cynthio thinks nothing high enough to be my value: Freeland therefore will take it for no obligation to have me; and Cynthio's idea of me, is what will vanish by knowing me better. Familiarity will equally turn the veneration of the one, and the indifference of the other, into contempt. I will stick therefore to my old maxim, to have that sort of man, who can have no greater views than what are in my power to give him possession of. The utmost of my dear Frisk's ambition is, to be thought a man of fashion ”

“ I shall therefore leave off when I am well, and fight with windmills no more: only shall be so arrogant as to say of myself, that in spite of all the force of fashion and prejudice, in the face of all the world, I alone bewailed the condition of an English gentleman, whose fortune and life are at this day precarious; while his estate is liable to the demands of gamesters, through a false sense of justice; and to the demands of duellists, through a false sense of honour. ”

“ It will, I doubt not, appear to the vulgar extravagant, that the actions of a mighty prince should be balanced by the censure of a private man, whose approbation or dislike are equally contemptible in their eyes, when they regard the thrones of sovereigns. But your Majesty has shown, through the whole course of your reign, too great a value for liberal arts to be insensible, that true fame lies only in the hands of learned men, by whom it is to be transmitted to futurity, with marks of honour or reproach to the end of time. ”

“ A madman fancies himself a prince; but upon his mistake, he acts suitably to that character; and though he is out in supposing he has principalities, while he drinks gruel, and lies in straw, yet you shall see him keep the port of a distressed monarch in all his words and actions. These two persons are equally taken into custody: but what must be done to half this good company, who every hour of their life are knowingly and wittingly both fools and madmen, and yet have capacities both of forming principles, and drawing conclusions, with the full use of reason? ”

“ I begin to love Frisk: it is the best-humoured impertinent thing in the world: he is always too in waiting, and will certainly carry me off one time or other. Freeland's father and mine have been upon treaty without consulting me; and Cynthio has been eternally watching my eyes, without approaching me, my friends, my maid, or any one about me: he hopes to get me, I believe, as they say the rattlesnake does the squirrel, by staring at me till I drop into his mouth. ”

“ But these ancients would be as much astonished to see in the same age so illustrious a pattern to all who love things praiseworthy, as the divine Aspasia.407 Methinks, I now see her walking in her garden like our first parent, with unaffected charms, before beauty had spectators, and bearing celestial conscious virtue in her aspect. Her countenance is the lively picture of her mind, which is the seat of honour, truth, compassion, knowledge, and innocence. ”

“ When your friend my father died, he left me to a wide world, with no defence against the insults of fortune, but rather, a thousand snares to entrap me in the dangers to which youth and innocence are exposed, in an age wherein honour and virtue are become mere words, and used only as they serve to betray those who understand them in their native sense, and obey them as the guides and motives of their being. ”

“ FRIEND. You are to understand, sir, that simplicity of behaviour, which is the perfection of good breeding and good sense, is utterly lost in the world; and in the room of it, there are started a thousand little inventions, which men, barren of better things, take up in the place of it. Thus, for every character in conversation that used to please, there is an impostor put upon you. ”

“ But the stars I am so intimately acquainted with, that I can assure him, he will never have her: for would you believe it, though Cynthio has wit, good sense, fortune, and his very being depends on her, the termagant for whom he sighs, is in love with a fellow, who stares in the glass all the time he is with her, and lets her plainly see, she may possibly be his rival, but never his mistress. ”

“ But this breach of commerce between the sexes, proceeds from an unaccountable prevalence of custom, by which a woman is to the last degree reproachable for being deceived, and a man suffers no loss of credit for being a deceiver. Since this tyrant humour has gained place, why are we represented in the writings of men in ill figures for artifice in our carriage, when we have to do with a professed impostor? When oaths, imprecations, vows, and adorations, are made use of as words of course, what arts are not necessary to defend us from such as glory in the breach of them? ”

“ He is a poor unwieldy wretch, that commits faults out of the redundance of his good qualities. His pity and compassion make him sometimes a bubble to all his fellows, let them be never so much below him in understanding. His desires run away with him through the strength and force of a lively imagination, which hurries him on to unlawful pleasures, before reason has power to come in to his rescue. Thus, with all the good intentions in the world to amendment, this creature sins on against heaven, himself, his friends, and his country, who all call for a better use of his talents. ”

“ But as charity is esteemed a conjunction of the good qualities necessary to a virtuous man, so love is the happy composition of all the accomplishments that make a fine gentleman. The motive of a man's life is seen in all his actions; and such as have the beauteous boy for their inspirer have a simplicity of behaviour, and a certain evenness of desire, which burns like the lamp of life in their bosoms; while they who are instigated by the satyr are ever tortured by jealousies of the object of their wishes ”

“ There is something very fantastical in the distribution of civil power and capacity among men. The law certainly gives these persons into the ward and care of the Crown, because that is best able to protect them from injuries, and the impositions of craft and knavery; that the life of an idiot may not ruin the entail of a noble house, and his weakness may not frustrate the industry or capacity of the founder of his family. But when one of bright parts, as we say, with his eyes open, and all men's eyes upon him, destroys those purposes, there is no remedy. Folly and ignorance are punished! ”