34.  In a word, could the world be reformed to the obedience of that famed dictate, follow nature, which the oracle of Delphos pronounced to Cicero when he consulted what course of studies he should pursue, we should see almost every man as eminent in his proper sphere as Tully was in his, and should in a very short time find impertinence and affectation banished from among the women, and coxcombs and false characters from among the men.

35.  For my part I could never consider this preposterous repugnancy to nature any otherwise, than not only as the greatest folly, but also one of the most heinous crimes, since it is a direct opposition to the disposition of providence, and (as Tully expresses it) like the sin of the giants, an actual rebellion against heaven.

SPECTATOR, Vol.  VI.  No. 404.

Good Humour and Nature.

1.  A man advanced in years that thinks fit to look back upon his former life, and calls that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in his infancy.  Sickness, ill-humour, and idleness, will have robbed him of a great share of that space we ordinarily call our life.

2.  It is therefore the duty of every man that would be true to himself, to obtain, if possible, a disposition to be pleased, and place himself in a constant aptitude for the satisfaction of his being.  Instead of this, you hardly see a man who is not uneasy in proportion to his advancement in the arts of life.

3.  An affected delicacy is the common improvement we meet with in these who pretend to be refined above others:  they do not aim at true pleasure themselves, but turn their thoughts upon observing the false pleasures of other men.  Such people are valetudinarians in society, and they should no more come into company than a sick man should come into the air.

4.  If a man is too weak to bear what is a refreshment to men in health, he must still keep his chamber.  When any one in Sir Roger’s company complains he is out of order, he immediately calls for some posset drink for him; for which reason that sort of people, who are ever bewailing their constitutions in other places, are the cheerfulest imaginable when he is present.

5.  It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with whom they converse, by giving them the history of their pains and aches; and imagine such narrations their quota of the conversation.  This is, of all others, the-meanest help to discourse, and a man must not think at all, or think himself very insignificant, when he finds an account of his head ache answered by another asking, what news in the last mail?

6.  Mutual good humour is a dress we ought to appear in wherever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice:  but indeed there are crowds of people who put themselves in no method of pleasing themselves or others; such are those whom we usually call indolent persons.