IS there a single pleasure worthy of a rational being, which is not, within certain limitations, consistent with religion and virtue? And are not the limits within which we are permitted to enjoy them the same which are prescribed by reason and nature, and which we cannot exceed without manifest hurt to ourselves or others? It is not the life of a hermit that is enjoined us: it is only the life of a rational being, formed for society, capable of continual improvement, and consequently of continual advancement in happiness.

  Sir Charles and Lady Worthy are neither gloomy ascetics, nor frantic enthusiasts; they married from affection, on long acquaintance and perfect esteem; they therefore enjoy the best pleasures of the heart in the highest degree. They concur in a rational scheme of life, which, whilst it makes them always cheerful and happy, renders them the friends of human kind and the blessing of all around them. They do not desert their station in the world, nor deny themselves the proper and moderate use of their large fortune; though that portion of it which is appropriated to the use of others is that from which they derive their highest gratifications. They spend four or five months of every year in London, where they keep up an intercourse of hospitality and civility with many of the most respectable persons of their own, or of higher rank; but have endeavored rather at a select than a numerous acquaintance; and as they never play at cards, this endeavor has the more easily succeeded. Three days in the week, from the hour of dinner, are given up to this intercourse with what may be called the world. Three more are spent in a family way, with a few intimate friends whose tastes are conformable to their own, and with whom the book and working table, or sometimes music, supply the intervals of useful and agreeable conversation. In these parties their children are always present, and partake of the improvement that arises from such society, or from the well-chosen pieces which are read aloud. The seventh day is always spent at home, after the due attendance on public worship, and is peculiarly appropriated to the religious instruction of their children and servants, or to other works of charity. As they keep regular hours and rise early, and as Lady Worthy never pays or admits morning visits, they have seven or eight hours in every day, free from all interruption from the world, in which the cultivation of their own minds and those of their children, the due attention to health, to economy, and to the poor, are carried on in the most regular manner.

  Thus, even in London, they contrive, without the appearance of quarreling with the world, or of shutting themselves up from it, to pass the greater part of their time in a reasonable and useful, as well as an agreeable, manner. The rest of the year they spend at their family seat in the country, where the happy effects of their example and of their assiduous attention to the good of all around them, are still more observable than in town. Their neighbors, their tenants, and the poor, for many miles about them, find in them a sure resource and comfort in calamity, and a ready assistance to every scheme of honest industry. The young are instructed at their expense and under their direction, and rendered useful at the earliest period possible; the aged and the sick have every comfort administered that their state requires; the idle and dissolute are kept in awe by vigilant inspection; the quarrelsome are brought, by a sense of their own interest, to live more quietly with their family and neighbors, and amicably to refer their disputes to Sir Charles’s decision.

  This amiable pair are not less highly prized by the genteel families of their neighborhood, who are sure of finding in their house the most polite and cheerful hospitality, and in them a fund of good sense and good humor, with a constant disposition to promote every innocent pleasure. They are particularly the delight of all the young people, who consider them as their patrons and their oracles, to whom they always apply for advice and assistance in any kind of distress or in any scheme of amusement.

  Sir Charles and Lady Worthy are seldom without some friends in the house with them during their stay in the country; but, as their methods are known, they are never broken in upon by their guests, who do not expect to see them till dinner time, except at the hour of prayer and of breakfast. In their private walks or rides, they usually visit the cottages of the laboring poor, with all of whom they are personally acquainted; and by the sweetness and friendliness of their manner, as well as by their beneficent actions, they so entirely possess the hearts of these people that they are made the confidants of all their family grievances, and the casuists to settle all their scruples of conscience or difficulties in conduct. By this method of conversing freely with them they find out their different characters and capacities, and often discover and apply to their own benefit, as well as that of the person they distinguish, talents which would otherwise have been forever lost to the public.

  From this slight sketch of their manner of living, can it be thought that the practice of virtue costs them any great sacrifices? Do they appear to be the servants of a hard master? It is true, they have not the amusement of gaming, nor do they curse themselves in bitterness of soul, for losing the fortune Providence had bestowed upon them: they are not continually in public places, nor stifled in crowded assemblies; nor are their hours consumed in an insipid interchange of unmeaning chat with hundreds of fine people who are perfectly indifferent to them; but then, in return, the Being whom they serve indulges them in the best pleasures of love, of friendship, of parental and family affection, of divine beneficence, and a piety which chiefly consists in joyful acts of love and praise!—not to mention the delights they derive from a taste uncorrupted and still alive to natural pleasures; from the beauties of nature, and from cultivating those beauties joined with utility in the scenes around them; and, above all, from that flow of spirits, which a life of activity, and the constant exertion of right affections, naturally produce. Compare their countenances with those of the wretched slaves of the world, who are hourly complaining of fatigue, of listlessness, distaste, and vapors; and who, with faded cheeks and worn-out constitutions, still continue to haunt the scenes where once their vanity found gratification, but where they now meet only with mortification and disgust; then tell me, which has chosen the happier plan, admitting for a moment that no future penalty was annexed to a wrong choice? Listen to the character that is given of Sir Charles Worthy and his lady, wherever they are named, and then tell me, whether even your idol, the world, is not more favorable to them than to you.

  Perhaps it is vain to think of recalling those whom long habits, and the established tyranny of pride and vanity, have almost precluded from a possibility of imitating such patterns, and in whom the very desire of amendment is extinguished; but for those who are now entering on the stage of life, and who have their parts to choose, how earnestly could I wish for the spirit of persuasion—for such a “warning voice” as should make itself heard amidst all the gay bustle that surrounds them! it should cry to them without ceasing, not to be led away by the crowd of fools, without knowing whither they are going—not to exchange real happiness for the empty name of pleasure—not to prefer fashion to immortality—and not to fancy it possible for them to be innocent and at the same time useless.