Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1818-05-21
ALEXANDRIA:
THURSDaY. NAY 81, 1918.
LUXURY.

class Of mulccrtents whom | call Croa"-
ers, and who, to borrow the aid OF
bull, I would say are never easy but
when they are miserable. Free countries
abound wi ii these more than despotIsms,
because having feY real evils to contend
with, their miserics are created by the
Imagination, and the workings OF the
imagination know no bounds. England
has therefore at all times teemed with
croakcrs-the times were very hard there
indeed, if pretext Of some kind or other
is no, to be found for being miserable. FL
Their the corruption Of government or the
knayery Of opposition was always at hand
to supply food for uneasiness, and to
save the lovers of melancholy from the
awkward circumstance Of being tranquil
or cheerful. Poor Dick Doletul! !" says
the Croaker of Goldsmith's comedy, in
whimper-ne and I used TO he so CON-
fortab!y miserable together Dick used
to say that croaker was rhyms TO Joker,
and we would rhyme together" In this
country where we more resemble the En-
clish than we are aware Of, we should be
heard croaking, too, in the same style,
were it not that the weight of our melan'
choly is counterbalanced BY our peevish
patriotism, and that our luqubrous feel
ings and wailings instead CT running
out at our eyes, and being vented in obs,
and abs through the thorax, are vomited
forth in ink through the columns Of the
public journals ia mode of querulous-
ness which has gradually become so ha-
bitual to US, that we too frequently in,
dulge our private personal griefs in the
same way as our public state troubles,
and complain of The per6dy ola friend,
the selfishness of neighbor, and some
times even Of the backsliding of a wife,
in the same way and through the same
medium that we should impeach minis
ter, expose the conduct Of government,
or chas,ise the prohigacy of corrupt
statesman.
Yet We are upon the whole sufficiently
adroit in making ou selves uncomforta-
ble-and il is not at all uncommon to see
one column Of newspaper filled with
eensures upon the inactivity Of those
whose business it is, in promoting this or
that Improvement, and urging, as the
first duty of patriotism, the adoption Of
various measures for elerating the coun.
try to successful rivalship with the re-
fnements and voluptuousness Of the old
Worthwhile the next contains pathetic
denunciations against grandeur, over re-
fnement, luxury and splendor, as being
subversive Of republican simplicity and
virtue, and therefore, in the end, sub
vcrsive Of cur happy state Of rational
freedom and independence. The former
seeming to forget, all the time, that We
could not make more rapid strides to
grandeur and luxury than We are already
making, though satan himself were to a.
scend and lay his burning paw upon our
backs to push US forward ; and the latter
to want the skill to know that nothing IN
the ordinary course Of human affairs can
prevent US from being the richest people
in the world, and that therefore nothing
but the miracle-the Great Disposer him
self deigning in pity to us, to make US
what beings merely human never yet
were--wise yet full, and gifted at once
with those two irreconeileable possessions,
power and self.denlal.
Never wera the vanity Of human wishes,
and the incompetence of man ia the pur-
poses Of perfect freedom or earthly en-
ioyment, better illustrated than by this
dilemma in his condition. He cannot be
rich without being luxurious-he cannot
be luxurious without being vicious-and
he cannot be vicious without becoming
ensIaved and miserable. say this of
whole societies only, not Of each indivi.
dual; being convinced that men may be-
aud often are luxurious without being
wicked-and that there is nothing ia