Such beautiful Prospects gladden our Minds, and when considered in
general, give innocent and pleasing Ideas. He that dwells upon any one
Object of Beauty, may fix his Imagination to his Disquiet; but the
Contemplation of a whole Assembly together, is a Defence against the
Encroachment of Desire: At least to me, who have taken pains to look at
Beauty abstracted from the Consideration of its being the Object of
Desire; at Power, only as it sits upon another, without any Hopes of
partaking any Share of it; at Wisdom and Capacity, without any
Pretensions to rival or envy its Acquisitions: I say to me, who am
really free from forming any Hopes by beholding the Persons of beautiful
Women, or warming my self into Ambition from the Successes of other Men,
this World is not only a meer Scene, but a very pleasant one. Did
Mankind but know the Freedom which there is in keeping thus aloof from
the World, I should have more Imitators, than the powerfullest Man in
the Nation has Followers. To be no Man's Rival in Love, or Competitor in
Business, is a Character which if it does not recommend you as it ought
to Benevolence among those whom you live with, yet has it certainly this
Effect, that you do not stand so much in need of their Approbation, as
you would if you aimed at it more, in setting your Heart on the same
things which the Generality doat on. By this means, and with this easy
Philosophy, I am never less at a Play than when I am at the Theatre; but
indeed I am seldom so well pleased with the Action as in that Place, for
most Men follow Nature no longer than while they are in their
Night-Gowns, and all the busy Part of the Day are in Characters which
they neither become or act in with Pleasure to themselves or their
Beholders. But to return to my Ladies: I was very well pleased to see so
great a Crowd of them assembled at a Play, wherein the Heroine, as the
Phrase is, is so just a Picture of the Vanity of the Sex in tormenting
their Admirers. The Lady who pines for the Man whom she treats with so
much Impertinence and Inconstancy, is drawn with much Art and Humour.
Her Resolutions to be extremely civil, but her Vanity arising just at
the Instant that she resolved to express her self kindly, are described
as by one who had studied the Sex. But when my Admiration is fixed upon
this excellent Character, and two or three others in the Play, I must
confess I was moved with the utmost Indignation at the trivial,
senseless, and unnatu