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1820 Sept. 10
To fit themselves for bearing a part in a course of legislation having for
its object the greatest happiness of the greatest number, this and not
mere amusement is (I take for granted) the main object with my Spanish
Pupils⊞1 ⊞1 on which account the
less expensive their habits
of living have been, the better:
indeed any one who has been bred up in what is called high life, had better not come. On If any supposed passed this supposition, they would not (I flatter myself, be much in danger of experiencing disappointment. If they could bring themselves to
forego, for the most part, the society of the titled and opulent (for this I have
long ago quitted, regarding the seat of opulence on the scale
of insipidity and ennui) they, may have the advantage
will as of course mix have the opportunity of mixing with the flower of this country
(I will venture to say) for moral and intellectual excellence
combined. They I say, for though I myself visit nobody, that rule would
or be : No which in some shape is not extend to them.⊞2 ⊞2 But their deriving
any benefit from this
depends will of course
depend upon such disposition
as they bring
with them. Unless social
sympathy on the largest
scale – a real zeal for
the service not only of
their own country be
included an ingredient in it, they to will
find themselves misplaced.
Scarcely in my friends little circle
wlll they have any conversation
which
has all the good of mankind in some shape or other for its object. Yet so far as
they be from being troubled with any thing like austerity, there If however the desperation to gravity which (I know not with what reason
are for in which greater is so constant as the little we are want to regard as forming part of a common ingredient in the Spanish character
in which my is . For one reason or other should have place in them in an inflexible state, they will be in
I at 72 much gayer than I was at 17. danger of finding themselves uncomfortable. For as is In philosophy in no
Epicureans or so in temper we are Democritus's. I at any rate I at
72 – am for one reason or other gayer gayer than I was at 17.
All this must As to a great part of this the benefit
Venerable they call me – those who have never seen me. Those who do see
me, would as soon think of calling a kitten venerable.⊞3 ⊞3 When Quincy Adams
had been with me two
or three times, I told
him I would thaw
some of his ice for him,
before I had done with
him: and so I did. As to a great part of
for the saying it was of course the person by whom it
all this, the person by whom it could with least propriety be said, supposing it all⊞4 ⊞4 true is (you will say to yourself) the person by whom it has been thus said.
has been said. But it were seemed necessary to the object purpose that from
somebody or other it should be known: and it under the circumstances
of the case it could be not have been made known by anybody else. A purpose I forget what
the Gentleman's name it is, that has lately been made (I have been have been told) Librarian
to the Cortes. He was on terms of intimacy (I understand)
with a member of a most respectable commercial commercial family here of the
name of Taylor. They I never was in the that Taylors company
more than once. But he knows me perfectly by reputation the abode of some near relation of
his is of the number of the houses that open into my
garden: and from him the most correct answers could be
had, relative to what is , and thought of me, and to that way the way in
which my life is passed.
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Identifier: | JB/013/228/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 13.
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1820-09-10 |
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jeremy bentham |
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see note to letter 2690, vol. 10 |
4677 |
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