The author feels no pain, but while
they are wondering at the extravagance of his opinion, and pointing him
out to one another, as a new example of human folly, he is enjoying his
own applause and that of his companions, and, perhaps, is elevated with
the hope of standing at the head of a new sect.
Many of the books which now crowd the world, may be justly suspected to
be written for the sake of some invisible order of beings, for surely
they are of no use to any of the corporeal inhabitants of the world. Of
the productions of the last bounteous year, how many can be said to
serve any purpose of use or pleasure! The only end of writing is to
enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it; and how
will either of those be put more in our power, by him who tells us, that
we are puppets, of which some creature, not much wiser than ourselves,
manages the wires! That a set of beings, unseen and unheard, are
hovering about us, trying experiments upon our sensibility, putting us
in agonies, to see our limbs quiver; torturing us to madness, that they
may laugh at our vagaries; sometimes obstructing the bile, that they may
see how a man looks, when he is yellow; sometimes breaking a traveller's
bones, to try how he will get home; sometimes wasting a man to a
skeleton, and sometimes killing him fat, for the greater elegance of his
hide.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109