Elizabeth-Town gazette. [volume] (Elizabeth-Town, N.J.) 1818-1821, 1818-11-03
MISCELLANY.
From the Connecticut Courant.
THE BRIEF REMARKER.

w &c CailDOt5 IL We Will HldkG ourselves
torpid like an oyster. We must needs be
doing something with our existence, or else
endure wearisome load as indescrhable as
1t is intolerable. Indeed occupation of one
kind or another is so necessary to human
quiet, that life is burdensome without it.
For short as life is, there are but few, if
any, who never complain at heart of the
Isupeifluity OF their time 3; whereas the
wights, great and small, who have nothing
at all to dc, are, for the a.ast part, perpetn-
ally uttering this most dolorous kind of
complaint, or at least manifest no ordina-
ry degree Of misunderstanding burthen.
ed with their time much more than the
most busy are burthened with their bust
ness.
The misery of idleness is TO be seen
nearly as much in high life, as in the rags
and filth Of extreme poverty. In Europe
there are classes of people who are idle as
| it were out Of necessity not that they are
unable to find employ, but they are unable
to find such employ as they think com
ports with their dignity. Manual labour
of any kind would degrade them nor does
the condition Of their rank allow them to
enter into trade, or even to embrace either
of the learned professions. In fact, save
those few who are selected to take part 10
the administration Of government, or who
are placed in high military stations -
they are exalted by the exalted condition
of their birth to perpetual idleness. And
what is the result? il is, that this very
exaItation of birth, which places them SO
far above all ordinary business, makes
them doubly wrethced.
"There is scarcely any truth more evil
|dent,' says writer who was possessed OF
a personal knowledge Of the SPLENDID
group whose picture he has delineaied,-
Is than that the noblesse of Europe, are in
general, less happy than the common peo-
pie. There is one irrefragable proof OF it,
which is, that they do not maintain their
own population. Families, like stars, or
candles, which you will, are going out
continually and without fresh recruits
from the plebian, the nobility would, in
time be extinct. If you make allowances
for the state, which they are condemned
by themselves to support, they are poorer
than the poor-deeply in debt-and tribu-
Itary to usurious capitalists, as greedy as
the Jews"
Persons in the intermediate grades be-
tween the very top and the very bottom
of the scale of life, have precious advanta
ges over those who are placed in either
|extreme. That they have advantages
over the lowest, all will readily admit:
and that they have some important adj
vantages over the highest, is position
equally true. In point of real solid COM
fort and happiness, the condition of the
farmer or mechanic who supplies his dali
Iy wants by the labour Of bis hands, is
io6nitely preferable to that of the noblesse
above described; who, for want of regu-
lar occupation, are under the hard ne
cessity of taking deal of pains and of
resorting to numberless expedients and
devices, to wear out the tedious moments
of their earthly existence. Even whilst,
with utmost eagerness. they are seeming
ly pursuing pleasure, their chief efforts
are to escape from misery, by killing the
time which hangs so heavily upon their
minds and their hearts. For as to pleasure,
they are SO surfeited Of it that they seek
it only as preferable to the distressing te-
diousness of total inaction.
Although, fortunately, in these United
States, there are no hereditary ranks,
that fix as it we're by never-ending entail
ment, the baneful disease of sloth upon
families; yet excessive wealth operates
not unfrequently, the like effects. After
a gatherer comes scatterer"-is pro-
verbal saying, which, in whatever couu-
try it originated, is no where, perhaps,
more strikingly matter Of fact than in our
own. Indeed nothing can be more natural
than the process. The gatherer," if he
have gathered very large heap, is Of
course man Of great worldly prudence !;
but SO far from being able to bequeath
that quality to his children, the single
circumstance of their being set up 10 the
world with fortunes has an almost ire
sistible tendency to render them imprudent
and improvident. You cannot put the old
head upon the young shoulders. You
can hardly convince the rich born youth
that considerable care and attention will
be necessary on his part, merely to keep
the fortune that falls to him. There is
more than an even chance that he will
be either carelessly indolent or prodigally
dissipated; that he will either waste his
time in idleness, or spend it in vain if not
vicious pursuits.
The vanity of wealth will alike affect
his children and his children's children.
IThey will doat much upon the circum-