bey them. She
will drive you, without mercy, through all her corruptive customs, and
through all her chameleon changes, and this against your judgment and
against your will. Do you keep an equipage? You must alter the very
shape of your carriage, if she prescribes it. Is the livery of your
postilion plain? You must make it of as many colours as she dictates. If
you yourself wear corbeau or raven colour to-day, you must change it, if
she orders you, to that of puce, or the flea, to-morrow. But it is not
only, in your equipage and your dress, that she will put you under her
control. She will make you obedient to her in your address and manners.
She will force upon you rules for your intercourse with others. She will
point out to you her amusements, and make you follow them. She will
place you under her cruel laws of honour, from which she will disown
you, if you swerve. Now I beseech you, tell me, which you think you
would prefer, the discipline of the goddess Fashion, or that of the good
old mistress, which you may have wished to leave? The one kindly points
out to you, and invites and warns you to avoid, every dangerous
precipice, that may be before you. The other is not satisfied, but with
your destruction. She will force you, for a single word, uttered in a
thoughtless moment, to run the hazard of your life, or to lose what she
calls your character. The one, by preserving you in innocence, preserves
you happy. The greater your obedience to her, the greater is your
freedom; and it is the best species of freedom, because it is freedom
from the pollutions of the world. The other awakens your conscience, and
calls out its stings. The more obedient you are to her, the greater is
your slavery, and it is the worst species of slavery, because it is
often slavery to vice. In consequence of the freedom which the one
bestows upon you, you are made capable of enjoying nature and its
various beauties, and by the contemplation of these, of partaking of an
endless feast. In consequence of the freedom which the one bestows upon
you, you are made capable of enjoying nature, and its various beauties,
and, by the contemplation, of these, of partaking of an endless feast.
In consequence of the slavery to which the other reduces you, you are
cramped as to such enjoyments. By accustoming you to be pleased with
ridiculous and corruptive objects, and silly and corruptive changes, she
confines your relish to worthless things. She palsies your v