The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1838-10-17
From The Metropolitan for September.

(For he had drawn aside the shronding veil)
BY her helpless hand, waxen and pale.
From The Metropolitan for September.
ABsURDITIES OF HUMAN LIFE.
To rise early on a cold morning when you
have nothing to do.
Not to 60 to bed when you are sleepy, be-
cause il is not a certain hour.
To stand in water to your knees fishing for
trout, when you can buy them in clean dry
market.
Curates, younger brothers, &c., marrying
out of hand; and when they find themselves
with numerous progeny, lamenting the seve-
rty of their lot, and abusing bishops, elder bro
theirs and patrons of all denominations for not
providing for them.
To suppose that every one likes to hear
your child cry, and you talk nonsense to it.
The perpetual struggle of affectation to pass
for an oddity.
Old men affecting the gaiety and gallantry
Of youth; young men assuming the gravity and
sanctity of age.
To the loss of time and money at the card
table to add that Of your temper.
An honest thriving soap-boiler lmagines he
has a talent for public speaking, commences
orator, and cannot comprehend, after many a
speech, why the government does not become
better, nor why his business has become worse.
You have dozen children with different
dispositions and capacities, and you give them
all the same education.
To send your son to travel into foreign
countries, ignorant ofthe history, manners and
language Of his own.
To tell person from whom you solicit a
- 81 mt SHf -
You lie in bed till eleven, take luxurious
breakfast, lounge about your park, return to a
sumptuous board at seven, play at cards till
midnight, eat heartily again at supper, and
wonder that you do not enjoy perfect elias
ITCHY and health Of mind and body.
To call man hospitable who INDUCES his
vanity by displaying his service Of plate to his
rich neighbors frequently, but was never
known to give dinner to any one really in
want of it.
You indulge your child in an unlimited
passion for fine clothes and good living, and
are afterwards shocked at his being coxcomb
and glutton.
That any man should despair of success in
any the most foolish undertaking, in world
SO overstocked with fools.
Such man is indebted to you in large
sum Of money, and has no means in posses
sion or in prospect Of paying you; that it may
be utterly impossible for him to earn it by his
industry, you immune him in prison for the
remainder of his days.
You make very foolish match, and gravely
ask judicious friend his opinion of your
choice.
To suppose that all men in public life must
be actuated by corrupt or interested motives.
Two armies, who know not, even the cause
of quarrel, previously induging in the work
of slaughter on the sound of trumpet and
on beat of a drum instantaneously stopping
and reciprocally performing every act of kind
ness.
man of superior talents and accomplish
ments is always pronounced conceited by the
clowns who cannot understand him.
With all the experience of the vicissitudes
offortune and the decline Of empires, to think
our own immortal. .
To desire the chambermaid of an inn to air
your sheets, or the ostler to feed your horse.
To salute your most intimate friend when
he is walking with any very great man.
To think every one man OF spirit who
fights duel.
To doubt what travellers report, because it
contradicts our own experience, or surPasseS
our own conceptions. 49,
To pronounce those the most pious who
never absent themselves from church.
To take offence at the address or carriage
of any man, with whose mind and conduct we
are acquainted.
Not to be profoundly deferental to quar-.
relsome man.
To expect punctuality from an idle man.
In severe paroxysm of govt, you deter
mine never to commit excess again.
To laugh at the appearance or manners of
foreigners, to whom we must appear equally
ridiculous.
To congratulate hypochondriac on his
good looks.
To tell a confirmed beauty she looks much
better than she did the last season.
To occupy the attention OF large compa-
ny by the recital Of an occurrence interesting
to yourself alone.
TO ask advice Of man who has always
mismanaged his own affairs.
To indulge in all manner Of excess and
vice, and imagine yourself cunning enough TO
conceal it from the world.
To subscribe to any interchangeable collector
for public charities, who has no visible means
OF subsistence.
To give any man wise in his own conceit
or superior to you in life, a candid opinion
when he asks your advice.
To give advice to, or argue with, fool.