This single stick, which you now behold3 ingloriously4 lying in that neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing5 state in a forest. It was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs6; but now in vain does the busy art of man7 pretend to vie8 with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs9 to its sapless trunk; it is now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside-down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air; it is now handled by every dirty wench10, condemned to do her drudgery11, and, by a capricious12 kind of fate, destined to make other things clean, and be nasty itself; at length13, worn to the stumps in the service of the maids, it is either thrown out of doors or condemned to the last use—of kindling14 a fire. When I beheld this I sighed, and said within myself, “Surely mortal15 man is a broomstick!” Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty16, in a thriving17 condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable18, till the axe of intemperance19 has lopped off20 his green boughs, and left him a withered trunk; he then flies to art and puts on a periwig21, valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never grew on his head; but now should this broomstick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils22 it never bore, and all covered with dust, through the sweepings of the finest lady’s chamber23, we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are of our own excellencies, and other men’s defaults!
But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray what is a man but a topsy-turvy24 creature, his animal faculties25 perpetually mounted on his rational26, his head where his heels should be, grovelling27 on the earth? And yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be28 a universal reformer and corrector of abuses | |