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Unit 27: Swift: Thoughts on Various Subjects ...

Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to posterity, let him consider in old Notes
books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.
Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer
and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Æneas. With historians it is quite the contrary;
our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the
authors. When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces
are all in confederacy against him.
Men who possess all the advantages of life, are in a state where there are many accidents to
disorder and discompose, but few to please them. It is unwise to punish cowards with ignominy,
for if they had regarded that they would not have been cowards; death is their proper punishment,
because they fear it most.
The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the use of the compass,
gunpowder, and printing, and by the dullest nation, as the Germans. One argument to prove that
the common relations of ghosts and spectres are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion
held that spirits are never seen by more than one person at a time; that is to say, it seldom happens
to above one person in a company to be possessed with any high degree of spleen or melancholy.
I am apt to think that, in the day of Judgment, there will be small allowance given to the wise for
their want of morals, nor to the ignorant for their want of faith, because both are without excuse.
This renders the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But, some scruples in the wise,
and some vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon the strength of temptation to each.
The value of several circumstances in story lessens very much by distance of time, though some
minute circumstances are very valuable; and it requires great judgment in a writer to distinguish.
It is grown a word of course for writers to say, “This critical age,” as divines say, “This sinful age.”
It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. Future Ages Shall
Talk of This; This Shall Be Famous To All Posterity. Whereas their time and thoughts will be taken
up about present things, as ours are now.
The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, hath, of all animals, the nimblest tongue.
When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.
It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise,
to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.
Some men, under the notions of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue, honesty, and religion. In
all well-instituted commonwealths, care has been taken to limit men’s possessions; which is done
for many reasons, and among the rest, for one which perhaps is not often considered: that when
bounds are set to men’s desires, after they have acquired as much as the laws will permit them,
their private interest is at an end, and they have nothing to do but to take care of the public.
There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of the world: to despise it, to
return the like, or to endeavour to live so as to avoid it. The first of these is usually pretended, the
last is almost impossible; the universal practice is for the second.
I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers than that of astrologers, when they pretend by
rules of art to tell when a suit will end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant;
thus making the matter depend entirely upon the influence of the stars, without the least regard
to the merits of the cause.
The expression in Apocrypha about Tobit and his dog following him I have often heard ridiculed,
yet Homer has the same words of Telemachus more than once; and Virgil says something like it
of Evander. And I take the book of Tobit to be partly poetical.
I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very serviceable to others, but
useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and
passengers, but not the owner within.

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