Money I considered as
below my care; for I saw such multitudes grow rich without
understanding, that I could not forbear to look on wealth as an
acquisition easy to industry directed by genius, and therefore threw it
aside as a secondary convenience, to be procured when my principal wish
should be satisfied, and the claim to intellectual excellence
universally acknowledged.
With this view I regulated my behaviour in publick, and exercised my
meditations in solitude. My life was divided between the care of
providing topicks for the entertainment of my company, and that of
collecting company worthy to be entertained; for I soon found, that wit,
like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success depends
upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and that as some
bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at
defiance, there are minds upon which the rays of fancy may be pointed
without effect, and which no fire of sentiment can agitate or exalt.
It was, however, not long before I fitted myself with a set of
companions who knew how to laugh, and to whom no other recommendation
was necessary than the power of striking out a jest. Among those I fixed
my residence, and for a time enjoyed the felicity of disturbing the
neighbours every night with the obstreperous applause which my sallies
forced from the audience.
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