a ghost or any
supernatural agency in it; others would shrink from an animated
description of the pleasures of love, as from a thing carnal and
libidinous; some cannot bear to see delicate and refined feelings
ascribed to men in low conditions in society, because their vanity and
self-love tell them that these belong only to themselves, and men like
themselves in dress, station, and way of life; others are disgusted with
the naked language of some of the most interesting passions of men,
because either it is indelicate, or gross, or vulgar; as many fine
ladies could not bear certain expressions in the 'Mother' and the
'Thorn,' and, as in the instance of Adam Smith, who, we are told, could
not endure the ballad of 'Clym of the Clough,' because the author had
not written like a gentleman. Then there are professional and national
prejudices for evermore. Some take no interest in the description of a
particular passion or quality, as love of solitariness, we will say,
genial activity of fancy, love of Nature, religion, and so forth,
because they have [little or] nothing of it in themselves; and so on
without end. I return then to [the] question, please whom? or what? I
answer, human nature as it has been (and ever) will be. But where are we
to find the best measure of this? I answer, [from with] in; by stripping
our own hearts naked, and by looking out of ourselves to [wards men] who
lead the simplest lives, and most according to Nature; men who have
never known false refinements, wayward and artificial desires, false
criticisms, effeminate habits of thinking and feeling, or who having
known these things have outgrown them. This latter class is the most to
be depended upon, but it is very small in number. People in our rank in
life are perpetually falling into one sad mistake, namely, that of
supposing that human nature and the persons they associate with are one
and the same thing. Whom do we generally associate with? Gentlemen,
persons of fortune, professional men, ladies, persons who can afford to
buy, or can easily procure books of half-a-guinea price, hot-pressed,
and printed upon superfine paper. These persons are, it is true, a part
of human nature, but we err lamentably if we suppose them to be fair
representatives of the vast mass of human existence. And yet few ever
consider books but with reference to their power of pleasing these
persons and men of a higher rank; few descend lower, among cottages and
fields, and