Surely this incessant solicitude for mere existence debilitates
the mind, and impairs even its passive faculty of suffering. We intrigue
for the favour of the keeper, smile complacently at the gross
pleasantries of a Jacobin, and tremble at the frown of a Dumont.--I am
ashamed to be the chronicler of such humiliation: but, "tush, Hal; men,
mortal men!" I can add no better apology, and quit you to moralize on
it.--Yours.
[No date given.]
Were I a mere spectator, without fear for myself or compassion for
others, the situation of this country would be sufficiently amusing. The
effects produced (many perhaps unavoidably) by a state of revolution--the
strange remedies devised to obviate them--the alternate neglect and
severity with which the laws are executed--the mixture of want and
profusion that distinguish the lower classes of people--and the distress
and humiliation of the higher; all offer scenes so new and unaccountable,
as not to be imagined by a person who has lived only under a regular
government, where the limits of authority are defined, the necessaries of
life plentiful, and the people rational and subordinate. The
consequences of a general spirit of monopoly, which I formerly described,
have lately been so oppressive, that the Convention thought it necessary
to interfere, and in so extraordinary a way, that I doubt if (as usual)
"the distemper of their remedies" will not make us regret the original
disease.
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