There is, indeed, no employment, however despicable,
from which a man may not promise himself
more than competence, when he sees thousands and
myriads raised to dignity, by no other merit than
that of contributing to supply their neighbours with
the means of sucking smoke through a tube of clay;
and others raising contributions upon those, whose
elegance disdains the grossness of smoky luxury, by
grinding the same materials into a powder that may
at once gratify and impair the smell.
Not only by these popular and modish trifles,
but by a thousand unheeded and evanescent kinds
of business, are the multitudes of this city preserved
from idleness, and consequently from want. In the
endless variety of tastes and circumstances that
diversify mankind, nothing is so superfluous, but that
some one desires it: or so common, but that some
one is compelled to buy it. As nothing is useless
but because it is in improper hands, what is thrown
away by one is gathered up by another; and the
refuse of part of mankind furnishes a subordinate
class with the materials necessary to their support.
When I look round upon those who are thus
variously exerting their qualifications, I cannot but
admire the secret concatenation of society that links
together the great and the mean, the illustrious
and the obscure; and consider with benevolent
satisfaction, that no man, unless his body or mind be
totally disabled, has need to suffer the mortification
of seeing himself useless or burthensome to the
community: he that will diligently labour, in whatever
occupation, will deserve the sustenance which
he obtains, and the protection which he enjoys; and
may lie down every night with the pleasing
consciousness of having contributed something to the
happiness of life.
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