Comity

“ With winning grace, and sweet simplicity;
The gay, yet decent, look; the modest air,
Which loves the brow of Youth, and triumphs there;
The power to give delight, devoid of art,
Which stole unconscious o'er the Lover's heart;
The wish to bless, with all those Virgin charms
Which heighten'd rapture in a Husband's arms;
Each infant friendship, each domestic care,
Each elevated thought was offer'd there.
Nor did the lavish Votary deny
One solid charm,—but chilling Chastity.
Enraptur'd Folly bless'd the lucky hour
That gave so fair a subject to her power. ”

“ Kings and queens in historical romance, princes and princesses in pantomime, duchesses in society comedy, of my working life in close communion with the warm-hearted children of Thespis, lift a corner of the veil, it will be but to show how much there is to admire in the men and women who, out of the rays of the limelight, often lead brave, self-sacrificing, and very human lives. ”

“ If you are as I am, no more nor less then—for I like you—there's my hand in comradeship. If you are otherwise, as those sleek outlines seem to promise—why, here's my hand again! But man or woman you must be—come, which is it? ”

“ The sanctities of religion, love, and political allegiance have not been exempt.
Why, if the comical object is always opposed to our demands, should we take pleasure in it? How can we be reconciled to things that are admittedly incongruous with our standards? Why are we not rather displeased and angry with them? ”

“ If one could communicate to thronging multitudes a fellow-feeling in all that belongs to man, by the portraying of happiness and misery, of wisdom and folly, nay, of absurdity and silliness; could kindle and thrill their inmost souls, and set their stagnant nature into movement, free, vehement, and pure! ”

“ Some do it with their society, some with their wit, some with their benevolence, some with a sort of power of conferring pleasure and good humour on all they meet—and in a thousand ways, all dutiful to the command of great Nature. ”

“ Thus, and in many ways which it would be labour lost to attempt to describe, and by many a stroke or touch of genius which it would be idle to seek to reproduce in paraphrase, the most observing and the most imaginative of our English humourists revealed to us that infinite multitude of associations which binds men together, and makes us members one of another. But though observation and imagination might discern and discover these associations, sympathy—the sympathy of a generous human heart with humanity—alone could breathe into them the warmth of life. ”

“ This universal sympathy, or fellow-feeling, of our social nature, is the principle of the different spirit dominant in different ages, countries, ranks, sexes, and periods of life. It is the cause why fashions, why political and religious enthusiasm, why moral example, either for good or evil, spread so rapidly and exert so powerful an influence. ”

“ Where the countenance, the tones, the gestures, the actions, join with the words, in communicating emotions, these united have a force irresistible. Thus all the agreeable emotions of the human heart, with all the social and virtuous affections, are, by means of these external signs, not only perceived but felt. By this admirable contrivance, social intercourse becomes that lively and animating amusement, without which life would at best be insipid. ”

“ Enter those repellent precincts and look about you upon the hapless ones whom the world has walled in from social communion with their fellows—study those young faces especially, and compare them with happy faces you know and love and surround with all the sweetness earth can give. ”

“ In other words, you who are establishing yourself, either as a young husband or a stranger, would you, if you could have your wish granted by a genie, choose to have the populace look upon you askance and in awe, because of your wealth and elegance, or would you wish to be loved, not as a power conferring favors which belong really to the first picture, but as a fellow-being with an understanding heart? ”

“ In those who lead lives of quiet sincerity and humility, consecrated to choice studies and chosen friends. What sweet charm or commanding grandeur or satisfying worth can be looked for in persons, the highest palpitations of whose hearts are raised by the touches of pride, money, and vanity? More patience, sincerity, studious seclusion, meditative consecration, and steady sympathy are the foremost want of our age. ”

“ FRIENDS TO VIRTUE
"The gods whom we all belong to are the gods we belong to whether we will or no."
INTO the theatre they came—
⁠"Motley's the only wear!"
Children of poverty, of shame,
⁠Of folly, of despair. ”

“ The multitude, instead of departing with a panic-stricken approbation of the laws which exhibited such a spectacle, are inspired with pity, admiration and sympathy; and the most generous among them feel an emulation to be the authors of such flattering emotions, as they experience stirring in their bosoms. ”

“ The chief trick by which clever men kept up the price of their abilities was called integrity. The chief trick by which handsome women kept up the price of their beauty was called modesty. The love of God, the love of country, the love of family, the love of friends, were phrases of the same sort, delicate and convenient synonymes for the love of self. ”

“ In the clear cold air, groups feasted, and sang, and danced, all mingling and intermixing with a freedom that showed how thoroughly the spirit of pleasure-seeking can annihilate the distinctions of class. ”

“ On the other hand, the finest argument ever concocted, the concentrated wisdom drawn from men and books, will fail to charm, like the hilarity of a dance, or the splendour of a gala, the young, gay girl, whose spirits are exuberant, and whose heart is untouched by care, and who, a dozen years afterwards, would, in calm cheerfulness, listen lovingly, and examine carefully, the pleaded reasons offered to her judgment. ”

“ So that our intercourse with them proceeds under the great law of kindness and charity. Try this with any of the Poet's illustrious groups of comic personages, and it will be found, I apprehend, thoroughly true. What distinguishes us from them, or sets us above them in our own esteem, is never appealed to as a source or element of delectation. And so the pleasure we have of them is altogether social in its nature, and humanizing in its effect, ever knitting more widely the bands of sympathy. ”

“ The youthful, the gay, the thoughtless, reckoning laughter and amusement among the real wants of life, (as to the weak and frivolous perhaps they are,) he undertook to build his fame on easing the human character of those moral excrements which pass off in grinning and mirth. ”

“ You wish to see me moving in elegant society, joining with youthful vigour in those scenes of amusement and worldly gaiety in which you think I ought to find delight, and attribute my objections to such amusements to a morbid antipathy to the elegancies of life, and an assumption of ascetic rigour ill suited to the character of one who has enjoyed my advantages. ”

“ The whole Compass, then, of our Passions, may be represented in Comedy, as well as Tragedy; but in a Manner intirely different, on account of the Difference of the Characters from which they arise. For it is certainly true, on the one Hand, that the Foundations of human Happiness and Misery, all the Springs and Sources of our Affections, are, in the main, the same, and common to all Mankind: But, it is as evident, on the other, that every Man, [Pg 290] according to his Station in Life, expresses those Affections in a different Manner, and with peculiar Images. ”

“ Have we never for instance, felt the power wherewith the orator unites and holds together a thousand men as if they were but one; with flashing eyes and throbbing hearts, all attentive to his words, and by the difference of their attitudes, by the variety of the expressions of their countenances testifying to the unity of that single living feeling with which he had inspired them? Whether it be indignation, whether it be compassion, or whether it be enthusiasm, that one living influence made the thousand for the time, one. ”

“ They hold up for imitation all those cardinal virtues of love and self-sacrifice,—which is the ultimate criterion of character,—of courage, loyalty, kindness, gentleness, fairness, pity, endurance, bravery, industry, perseverance, and thrift. ”

“ Whenever you desire to cheer yourself, think upon the merits of those who are alive with you; the energy of one, for instance, the modesty of another, the generosity of a third, of another some other gift. For nothing is so cheering as the images of the virtues shining in the character of contemporaries, and meeting so far as possible in a group. ”

“ Their principle was respect and justice to the inferior, protection to the weak, and true organization for life. With the rich humor and pure mirthfulness known only to the serious and chaste, they were severe without austerity; simple in private life, that they might be splendid in all that pertained to religious rites and public duties; with pure and dignified relations of friendship, realized on both sides, by husbands and wives, by the unmarried of both sexes, and by the old and the young. ”

“ I have never seen together so many attractions, so much gaiety, so much coquetry, so much light, so much innocence and virtue. No one ever understood better the art of having grace without affectation, raillery without malice, gaiety without folly, propriety without constraint, and virtue without severity. ”

“ From the society of such characters, who seem to consider the noble productions of superior intellect, the fine and vigorous flights of fancy, the brilliant effusions of a sublime imagination, and the refined feelings of the heart, as fancied conceits or wild deliriums, those who examine them by a better standard than that of fashion or common taste, fly with delight. ”

“ Each party as it comes on has its own peculiar picturesqueness, and affects the heart or imagination by some novel charm, gently gliding onward a little while by itself, as if not unconscious of its own attractions, nor unproud of the gaze of perhaps critical admiration that attends its progressive movement. ”

“ The gay, laughing temperament of some, the dark and serious composure of others; the cautious and reserved, the open and the candid, the witty, the sententious, the clever, the dull, the prudent, the reckless,—in a word, every variety which the innumerable hues of character imprint upon the human face divine are their study. ”

“ The enthusiasm of the people—the ardent daring of a valour whose impetuosity was its greatest difficulty—their high romantic temperament—their devotion—their gratitude—the childlike trustfulness of their natures, were all traits, scattered through the various narratives, which invariably attracted me, and drew me more strongly to their cause—more from affection than reason. ”

“ For what is so remote from severity of manners as gentleness and affability? and yet who more venerable than yourself, or who more agreeable? What can be more difficult than to decide a number of suits, so as to be equally esteemed and beloved by the parties on both sides? ”

“ Are they prepared to place all this in jeopardy, to minister to the pride and vanity of those who assume to be their rulers, who know nothing of domestic joys, or peaceful homes, or such sympathetic affections as grow out of the tenderest relations of life, or of the laughter and chattering of innocent children, which make the heart glad? ”

“ Staid, contemplative men, men with a prayer and a tune in them, press into this joyous throng, eager to clasp the bruised fruit of human desire and to claim kindred with these cheery fellowships. But, however varied the elements of the order, the members are constituted alike in this: they are hearty and laughter-loving; they are jolly and courageous. ”

“ In my public life I was striving after the emptiness of popular fame, going so far as to seek theatrical applause, entering poetic contests, striving for the straw garlands and the vanity of theatricals and intemperate desires. ”

“ But let the central soul suddenly become dominant, and he may, in the twinkling of an eye, turn upon the partner of his joys with furious execration; he may change his politics while you could snap your fingers; he may deal out deadly insult to his dearest friend; he may get him, instanter, to a monastery or a dance hall; he may elope, or hang himself—or he may write a song or poem, or kiss his wife unasked, or give his funds to the search of a microbe. ”

“ The whole spirit of the scene is noble and unselfish: lands, luxuries, and quiet are forsworn; and a preference, be it only of passion, be it a humor of the times mixed of equal parts of honor and vanity, be it [Pg 129] alloyed with disappointments and galled ambitions, is yet virile enough to stake its own aggrandizement rather than let inglorious caution strangle the chance of supremacy. ”

“ A heart fashioned altogether for sympathy, far above the pettiness of ordinary social circles, full of noble, pure feeling for truth and virtue, and admirable even where her sex is not usually so. I promise myself divine days in her immediate society. ”

“ We feel, in a way, grateful to him almost as we might feel grateful to a clever talker, a beautiful woman, a bright day, as to something pleasing and enlivening to our fancy. But the brilliant effect which has pleased us is like some gorgeous pageant connected with the worship of a stupid and ferocious divinity ”

“ There may have been joy among them, but all the passions of the individuals were blended into one passion—if such it could be called—of the mass, part contempt for the others, part confidence in themselves. ”