To advise a man unaccustomed to the eyes of
multitudes to mount a tribunal without perturbation, to tell him whose
life was passed in the shades of contemplation, that he must not be
disconcerted or perplexed in receiving and returning the compliments of
a splendid assembly, is to advise an inhabitant of Brasil or Sumatra not
to shiver at an English winter, or him who has always lived upon a plain
to look from a precipice without emotion. It is to suppose custom
instantaneously controllable by reason, and to endeavour to communicate,
by precept, that which only time and habit can bestow.
He that hopes by philosophy and contemplation alone to fortify himself
against that awe which all, at their first appearance on the stage of
life, must feel from the spectators, will, at the hour of need, be
mocked by his resolution; and I doubt whether the preservatives which
Plato relates Alcibiades to have received from Socrates, when he was
about to speak in publick, proved sufficient to secure him from the
powerful fascination.
Yet, as the effects of time may by art and industry be accelerated or
retarded, it cannot be improper to consider how this troublesome
instinct may be opposed when it exceeds its just proportion, and instead
of repressing petulance and temerity, silences eloquence, and
debilitates force; since, though it cannot be hoped that anxiety should
be immediately dissipated, it may be at least somewhat abated; and the
passions will operate with less violence, when reason rises against
them, than while she either slumbers in neutrality, or, mistaking her
interest, lends them her assistance.
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