ON THOUGHT AND ACTION.
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of turtle-soup. How many haunches of venison does he carry on his back! He is larded with jobs and contracts: he is stuffed and swelled out with layers of bank-notes and invitations to dinner! His face hangs out a flag of defiance to mischance: the roguish twinkle in his eye with which he lures half the city and beats Alderman hollow, is a smile reflected from heaps of unsunned gold! Nature and Fortune are not so much at variance as to differ about this fellow. To enjoy the good the Gods provide us is to deserve it. Nature meant him for a Knight, Alderman, and City Member; and Fortune laughed to see the goodly person and prospects of the man![1]—I am not, from certain early pre-
- ↑ A thorough fitness for any end implies the means. Where there is a will, there is a way. A real passion, an entire devotion to any object, always succeeds. The strong sympathy with what we wish and imagine realises it, dissipates all obstacles, and removes all scruples. The disappointed lover may complain as much as he pleases. He was himself to blame. He was a half witted, wishy-washy fellow. His love might be as great as he makes it out: but it was not his ruling passion. His fear, his pride, his vanity was greater. Let any one’s whole soul be steeped in this passion, let him think and care for nothing else, let nothing divert, cool, or intimidate him, let the ideal feeling become an actual one and take possession of his whole faculties, looks, and manner, let the same voluptuous hopes and wishes govern his actions
