in
every event without human contrivance or interposition, the part which
they may justly claim in his advancement. We rate ourselves by our
fortune rather than our virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly
produced by imaginary merit. But captiousness and jealousy are likewise
easily offended, and to him who studiously looks for an affront, every
mode of behaviour will supply it; freedom will be rudeness, and reserve
sullenness; mirth will be negligence, and seriousness formality; when he
is received with ceremony, distance and respect are inculcated; if he is
treated with familiarity, he concludes himself insulted by
condescensions.

It must however be confessed, that as all sudden changes are dangerous,
a quick transition from poverty to abundance can seldom be made with
safety. He that has long lived within sight of pleasures which he could
not reach, will need more than common moderation, not to lose his reason
in unbounded riot, when they are first put into his power.

Every possession is endeared by novelty; every gratification is
exaggerated by desire. It is difficult not to estimate what is lately
gained above its real value; it is impossible not to annex greater
happiness to that condition from which we are unwillingly excluded, than
nature has qualified us to obtain. For this reason, the remote inheritor
of an unexpected fortune, may be generally distinguished from those who
are enriched in the common course of lineal descent, by his greater
haste to enjoy his wealth, by the finery of his dress, the pomp of his
equipage, the splendour of his furniture, and the luxury of his table.

A thousand things which familiarity discovers to be of little value,
have power for a time to seize the imagination. A Virginian king, when
the Europeans had fixed a lock on his door, was so delighted to find his
subjects admitted or excluded with such facility, that it was from
morning to evening his whole employment to turn the key. We, among whom
locks and keys have been longer in use, are inclined to laugh at this
American amusement; yet I doubt whether this paper will have a single
reader that may not apply the story to himself, and recollect some hours
of his life in which he has been equally overpowered by the transitory
charms of trifling novelty.

Some indulgence is due to him whom a happy gale of fortune has suddenly
transported into new regions, where unaccustomed lustre dazzles his
eyes, and untasted delicacies sol