Monday, November 18, 2019
Vanity
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Discourse on the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, in his Prose Works, ed. Temple Scott, Vol. I: A Tale of a Tub and Other Early Works (London: George Bell and Sons, 1900), p. 200:
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However, it is a sketch of human vanity, for every individual to imagine the whole universe is interested in his meanest concern. If he hath got cleanly over a kennel, some angel unseen descended on purpose to help him by the hand; if he hath knocked his head against a post, it was the devil, for his sins, let loose from hell, on purpose to buffet him. Who, that sees a little paltry mortal, droning, and dreaming, and drivelling to a multitude, can think it agreeable to common good sense, that either Heaven or Hell should be put to the trouble of influence or inspection, upon what he is about?I think that a kennel here means a fox-hole, got cleanly over while riding a horse.
