Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Guardian, No. 161

London

September 15, 1713

"These are generally persons who, in Shakespear's phrase, are worn and hackney'd in the Ways of Men; whose imaginations are grown Callous, and have lost all those delicate Sentiments which are natural to Minds that are innocent and undepraved."

In the third Place, we are to consider those Persons, who treat this principle as chimerical, and turn it into Ridicule. Men who are professedly of no Honour, are of a more profligate and abandoned Nature than even those who are acted by false Notions of it, as there is more Hopes of a Heretick than of an Atheist. These Sons of Infamy consider Honour with old Syphax, in the Play before-mentioned, as a fine imaginary Notion, that leads astray young unexperienc'd Men, and draws them into real Mischiefs, while they are engaged in the Pursuits of a Shadow. These are generally persons who, in Shakespear's phrase, are worn and hackney'd in the Ways of Men; whose imaginations are grown Callous, and have lost all those delicate Sentiments which are natural to Minds that are innocent and undepraved. Such old battered Miscreants ridicule every thing as Romantick that comes in Competition with their present Interest, and treat those Persons as Visionaries, who dare stand up in a corrupt Age, for what has not its immediate Reward joined to it. The Talents, Interest, or Experience of such Men, make them very often useful in all Parties, and at all Times. But whatever Wealth and Dignities they may arrive at, they ought to consider, that every one stands as a Blot in the Annals of his Country, who arrives at the Temple of Honour by any other way than through that of Virtue.
(pp. 526-7)

Body::Callous

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Stephens, John Calhoun, ed. The Guardian (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1982), 525-7.

05/26/2005

12/14/2010