CONTENT AND COURTESY.

The first ambition of mankind is to be happy. To the brute creation, and to man in a state of nature, happiness consists in sensual gratification. To this, succeeds the factitious happiness of civilization; whence the origin of a variety of popular errors and prejudices. From the days of Horace to our own, people have been prone to envy those who pursue any career but their own. But if the soldier envy the position of the civilian, and vice versÂ, it is clear that the ambition of being what one is not, arises from the fact that every one is acquainted with the drawback on his own profession, and only appreciates the advantages of that to which he does not belong. La Fontaine never imagined anything more true, or more charming, than the fable of the cobbler entreating the financier to restore him his song and peaceful sleep, in exchange for the hundred crowns he had bestowed upon him. Every one has heard the Persian apologue of the Sophi, to whom, in a fit of acute suffering, the sole remedy prescribed was the shirt of a happy man; a treasure difficult to discover either in Court or city; till at length a ragged wretch was found in the suburbs of Ispahan, who admitted himself to be perfectly happy; but alas! he had not a shirt to his back; and the cure of the Sophi was not more advanced than before.

History has its lessons on this head as well as fiction. The Comte de SÉgur relates in his Memoirs, that previous to the Revolution, the Duke de Lauraguais wrote to him as follows:

“Congratulate me, my dear SÉgur. Thanks be to Heaven, I am completely ruined! I have nothing left, but am delivered from the importunities of my creditors.”

Towards the termination of his career, this witty nobleman subsided into voluntary habits of simplicity, differing strangely from his past splendours. Never, however, had he been happier!—His peace of mind was from within; superior to all incidents of birth, position, and fortune.

It requires to have inhabited the various stories of the social edifice, to be able to judge man under the various aspects resulting from fortune and station. Happiness has little to do with either; fortune and misfortune have alike their evil influences. Covetousness is as insatiable as ambition. In proportion as people scale the ladder of opulence, they discover others richer than themselves to excite their envy; and vanity pervades every rank of society, marring the quietude of the human mind. The laurels of Miltiades gave umbrage to Themistocles; and CÆsar declared that he would rather be the first of a village, than second in Rome. A wiser man was the shepherd who said: “Were I a King, I would keep my sheep on horseback.”

The ceremonies of politeness, when carried to excess, are a source of public inconvenience. The custom of addressing a lady bare-headed, as was the case in France a century ago, when Louis XIV., even in a shower, refused to put on his hat in the presence of females, was the cause of many a serious indisposition. The custom of appearing bare-headed in church is also dangerous to many; and, so far unreasonable, that men are unable to appear in hats, while it would be accounted singular for a woman to appear there without a bonnet. Can any reasonable motive be assigned for such a distinction?

Again, what is the origin of the ridicule attached to a person who is left-handed? It is clear that some are born with an instinctive facility in the use of the right hand—some of the left. Yet mothers punish their children for using the left hand, as an act of awkwardness. The preference given to the use of the right hand, though existing from the times of antiquity, is not the less ridiculous.

In Holy Writ, the right hand is made an instrument of benediction; which probably conferred a superiority over the left. Theologians also contend that the Son of God sat on the right of the heavenly throne. The Romans conceded such superiority to the right hand, that when at table, they lay on the left side that the right hand might be free. Aristotle maintained that the pre-eminence of the right hand proceeded from the same conformation by which the cray-fish have the right claw larger than the left. Politeness in these days requires we should place the person we wish to distinguish, on the right. The indiscriminate use of both hands is the best lesson to teach a child:—indifference to the distinction bestowed by the assignment of a place on either, the best lesson to be practised by adolescence.

Parisians consider it a lesson of politeness to their young children to kiss their right hand before receiving any thing presented to them. The left hand is, however, devoted to the wedding-ring. This is not a Christian custom; but prevailed among the Assyrians, Medes, Egyptians, Babylonians, and most of the people of antiquity.

Many people object to uttering the word farewell in parting from a friend, influenced by a prejudice that a fatality attaches to the word. Whence the French mode of taking leave with “sans adieu!”

The compliments formerly paid to a person sneezing are now happily abandoned; having arisen in those early days of civilization when epidemics were so far more frequent and fatal than now. It was the custom, in most European countries, to say “God bless you,” to the person who sneezed, lest it should be symptomatic of the commencement of an illness.

Sneezing has been the object of a variety of ridiculous prejudices. Aristotle pronounces sneezing to be a gift from the Gods, and to be honoured as a thing of holiness, and a sign of good health. Hippocrates agrees with Aristotle, and pronounces it a great relief to parturient women. The Rabbins assert that Adam sneezed after his fall; and that in the primitive times, sneezing was a sure prognostic of death; and remained so till the patriarch Jacob obtained from God that it should no longer be the forerunner of dissolution. It is fortunate this change took place previous to the use of snuff; or the snuffbox would have been accounted fatal as that of Pandora.