ant, and looking an angry
look at another: it ought insensibly to slide along, and to represent an
ordinary current; and I think it unhandsome to talk much to our guests of
their entertainment, whether by way of bragging or excuse. I love order
and cleanliness--

"Et cantharus et lanx
Ostendunt mihi me"--

["The dishes and the glasses shew me my own reflection."
--Horace, Ep., i. 5, 23]

more than abundance; and at home have an exact regard to necessity,
little to outward show. If a footman falls to cuffs at another man's
house, or stumble and throw a dish before him as he is carrying it up,
you only laugh and make a jest on't; you sleep whilst the master of the
house is arranging a bill of fare with his steward for your morrow's
entertainment. I speak according as I do myself; quite appreciating,
nevertheless, good husbandry in general, and how pleasant quiet and
prosperous household management, carried regularly on, is to some
natures; and not wishing to fasten my own errors and inconveniences to
the thing; nor to give Plato the lie, who looks upon it as the most
pleasant employment to every one to do his particular affairs without
wrong to another.

When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself, and the laying out
my money; which is disposed of by one single precept; too many things are
required to the raking it together; in that I understand nothing; in
spending, I understand a little, and how to give some show to my expense,
which is indeed its principal use; but I rely too ambitiously upon it,
which renders it unequal and difform, and, moreover, immoderate in both
the one and the other aspect; if it makes a show, if it serve the turn,
I indiscreetly let it run; and as indiscreetly tie up my purse-strings,
if it does not shine, and does not please me. Whatever it be, whether
art or nature, that imprints in us the condition of living by reference
to others, it does us much more harm than good; we deprive ourselves of
our own utilities, to accommodate appearances to the common opinion:
we care not so much what our being is, as to us and in reality, as what
it is to the public observation. Even the properties of the mind, and
wisdom itself, seem fruitless to us, if only enjoyed by ourselves, and if
it produce not itself to the view and approbation of others. There is a
sort of men whose gold runs in streams underground imperceptibly;