Читать книгу Life's Progress Through the Passions; Or, The Adventures of Natura - Eliza Fowler Haywood - Страница 3
ОглавлениеINTRODUCTION.
I have often heard it observed by the readers of biography, that the characters are generally too high painted; and that the good or bad qualities of the person pretended to be faithfully represented, are displayed in stronger colours than are to be found in nature. To this the lovers of hyperbole reply, that virtue cannot be drawn too beautiful, nor vice too deformed, in order to excite in us an ambition of imitating the one, and a horror at the thoughts of becoming any way like the other. — The argument at first, indeed, seems to have some weight, as there is nothing, not even precept itself, which so greatly contributes whether to rectify or improve the mind, as the prevalence of example: but then it ought to be considered, that if the pattern laid down before us, is so altogether angelic, as to render it impossible to be copied, emulation will be in danger of being swallowed up in an unprofitable admiration; and, on the other hand, if it appears so monstrously hideous as to take away all apprehensions of ever resembling it, we might be too apt to indulge ourselves in errors which would seem small in comparison with those presented to us. — There never yet was any one man, in whom all the virtues, or all the vices, were summed up; for, though reason and education may go a great way toward curbing the passions, yet I believe experience will inform, even the best of men, that they will sometimes launch out beyond their due bounds, in spite of all the care can be taken to restrain them; nor do I think the very worst, and most wicked, does not feel in himself, at some moments, a propensity to good, though it may be possible he never brings it into practice; at least, this was the opinion of the antients, as witness the poet's words:
All men are born with seeds of good and ill; And each shoot forth, in more or less degree: One you may cultivate with care and skill, But from the other ne'er be wholly free.
The human mind may, I think, be compared to a chequer-work, where light and shade appear by turns; and in proportion as either of these is most conspicuous, the man is alone worthy of praise or censure; for none there are can boast of being wholly bright.
I believe by this the reader will be convinced he must not expect to see a faultless figure in the hero of the following pages; but to remove all possibility of a disappointment on that score, I shall farther declare, that I am an enemy to all romances, novels, and whatever carries the air of them, tho' disguised under different appellations; and as it is a real, not fictitious character I am about to present, I think myself obliged, for the reasons I have already given, as well as to gratify my own inclinations, to draw him such as he was, not such as some sanguine imaginations might with him to have been.
I flatter myself, however, that truth will appear not altogether void of charms, and the adventures I take upon me to relate, not be less pleasing for being within the reach of probability, and such as might have happened to any other as well as the person they did. — Few there are, I am pretty certain, who will not find some resemblance of himself in one part or other of his life, among the many various and surprizing turns of fortune, which the subject of this little history experienced, as also be reminded in what manner the passions operate in every stage of life, and how far the constitution of the outward frame is concerned in the emotions of the internal faculties.
These are things surely very necessary to be considered, and when they are so, will, in a great measure, abate that unbecoming vehemence, with which people are apt to testify their admiration, or abhorrence of actions, which it very often happens would lose much of their eclat either way, were the secret springs that give them motion, seen into with the eyes of philosophy and reflection.
But this will be more clearly understood by a perusal of the facts herein contained, from which I will no longer detain in the attention of my reader.
