A Degree Of Exertion, Produced By Some Want,
More Or Less Painful, Is Probably The Price We Must All Pay For
Knowledge.
How few authors or artists have arrived at eminence who
have not lived by their employment?
I was interrupted yesterday by business, and was prevailed upon to
dine with the English vice-consul. His house being open to the sea,
I was more at large; and the hospitality of the table pleased me,
though the bottle was rather too freely pushed about. Their manner
of entertaining was such as I have frequently remarked when I have
been thrown in the way of people without education, who have more
money than wit - that is, than they know what to do with. The women
were unaffected, but had not the natural grace which was often
conspicuous at Tonsberg. There was even a striking difference in
their dress, these having loaded themselves with finery in the style
of the sailors' girls of Hull or Portsmouth. Taste has not yet
taught them to make any but an ostentatious display of wealth. Yet
I could perceive even here the first steps of the improvement which
I am persuaded will make a very obvious progress in the course of
half a century, and it ought not to be sooner, to keep pace with the
cultivation of the earth. Improving manners will introduce finer
moral feelings. They begin to read translations of some of the most
useful German productions lately published, and one of our party
sung a song ridiculing the powers coalesced against France, and the
company drank confusion to those who had dismembered Poland.
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