Indeed, I have observed one ingredient, somewhat necessary in a
man's composition towards happiness, which people of feeling would
do well to acquire; a certain respect for the follies of mankind:
for there are so many fools whom the opinion of the world entitles
to regard, whom accident has placed in heights of which they are
unworthy, that he who cannot restrain his contempt or indignation at
the sight will be too often quarrelling with the disposal of things
to relish that share which is allotted to himself. I do not mean,
however, to insinuate this to have been the case with Harley; on the
contrary, if we might rely on his own testimony, the conceptions he
had of pomp and grandeur served to endear the state which Providence
had assigned him.
He lost his father, the last surviving of his parents, as I have
already related, when he was a boy. The good man, from a fear of
offending, as well as a regard to his son, had named him a variety
of guardians; one consequence of which was, that they seldom met at
all to consider the affairs of their ward; and when they did meet,
their opinions were so opposite, that the only possible method of
conciliation was the mediatory power of a dinner and a bottle, which
commonly interrupted, not ended, the dispute; and after that
interruption ceased, left the consulting parties in a condition not
very proper for adjusting it.
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