The vivacity
and confidence which attract female admiration,
are seldom produced in the early part of life,
but by ignorance at least, if not by stupidity; for
they proceed not from confidence of right, but
fearlessness of wrong. Whoever has a clear apprehension,
must have quick sensibility, and where he has
no sufficient reason to trust his own judgment, will
proceed with doubt and caution, because he perpetually
dreads the disgrace of errour. The pain of
miscarriage is naturally proportionate to the desire
of excellence; and, therefore, till men are hardened
by long familiarity with reproach, or have attained,
by frequent struggles, the art of suppressing their
emotions, diffidence is found the inseparable associate
of understanding.
But so little distrust has my pupil of his own
abilities, that he has for some time professed himself
a wit, and tortures his imagination on all occasions
for burlesque and jocularity. How he supports
a character which, perhaps, no man ever assumed
without repentance, may be easily conjectured.
Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of
ideas, the discovery of some occult relation between
images in appearance remote from each other; an
effusion of wit, therefore, presupposes an accumulation
of knowledge; a memory stored with notions,
which the imagination may cull out to compose
new assemblages.
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