We often see that
one part of their understanding is nourished to the prejudice of the
rest--the imagination, for instance, at the expense of the judgment: so
that whilst they have acquired talents for show they have none for use.
In the affairs of common life they are utterly ignorant and imbecile--or
worse than imbecile. Early called into public notice, probably before
their moral habits are formed, they are extolled for some play of fancy
or of wit, as Bacon calls it, some juggler's trick of the intellect; they
immediately take an aversion to plodding labour, they feel raised above
their situation; possessed by the notion that genius exempts them not
only from labour, but from vulgar rules of prudence, they soon disgrace
themselves by their conduct, are deserted by their patrons, and sink into
despair or plunge into profligacy.
Convinced of these melancholy truths, Madame de Fleury was determined not
to add to the number of those imprudent or ostentatious patrons, who
sacrifice to their own amusement and vanity the future happiness of their
favourites. Victoire's verses were not handed about in fashionable
circles, nor was she called upon to recite them before a brilliant
audience, nor was she produced in public as a prodigy; she was educated
in private, and by slow and sure degrees, to be a good, useful, and happy
member of society.
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