Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/93

 his lavishness, he is full as much a miser, to everybody but himself, as the other. Indeed, he is reputed by the mistaken world to be generous; and, as he perfectly understands the art of flattering himself, he believes he is so; but nothing can be farther from it. For though he would not scruple to throw away the last twenty guineas he had in the world to satisfy any fancy of his own, he would grudge a shilling to do anything that is right, or to serve another. These two men, who appear so widely different, you may suppose have a strong contempt for each other; but if they could think of themselves with that impartiality, and judge of their own actions with that good sense with which they judge of everything else, they would find that they are much more alike than they at present imagine. The motive of both their actions is selfishness, which makes everything centre wholly in themselves. It was accident brought them together last night; for a covetous man as naturally shuns the company of a prodigal, unless he has a great estate, and he can make a prey of him, as an envious ugly woman does that of a handsome one, unless she can contrive to do her some mischief by conversing with her. "That gentleman who sat next me, and inveighed against treachery and ingratitude, with such a strength of imagination, and delightful variety of expressions, that a Pythagorean would have thought the soul of Seneca had been transmigrated into him, I know a story of, that will at once raise your wonder and detestation. "His father was one of those sort of men, who, though he never designed any ill, yet from an indolent, careless disposition, and trusting his affairs entirely to others, ran out a very good estate, and left his son at the age of fifteen, upon the wide world, to shift for himself. An uld gentleman