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.

Contempt and admiration are equally incident to narrow minds: he whose
comprehension can take in the whole subordination of mankind, and whose
perspicacity can pierce to the real state of things through the thin
veils of fortune or of fashion, will discover meanness in the highest
stations, and dignity in the meanest; and find that no man can become
venerable but by virtue, or contemptible but by wickedness.

In the midst of this universal hurry, no man ought to be so little
influenced by example, or so void of honest emulation, as to stand a