Consider, Mr. Rambler, and compassionate the condition of a
man, who has taught every company to expect from him a continual feast
of laughter, an unintermitted stream of jocularity. The task of every
other slave has an end. The rower in time reaches the port; the
lexicographer at last finds the conclusion of his alphabet; only the
hapless wit has his labour always to begin, the call for novelty is
never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.
I know that among men of learning and asperity the retainers to the
female world are not much regarded: yet I cannot but hope that if you
knew at how dear a rate our honours are purchased, you would look with
some gratulation on our success, and with some pity on our miscarriages.
Think on the misery of him who is condemned to cultivate barrenness and
ransack vacuity; who is obliged to continue his talk when his meaning is
spent, to raise merriment without images, to harass his imagination in
quest of thoughts which he cannot start, and his memory in pursuit of
narratives which he cannot overtake; observe the effort with which he
strains to conceal despondency by a smile, and the distress in which he
sits while the eyes of the company are fixed upon him as the last refuge
from silence and dejection.
Pages:
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261