He thought all speculation, which did
not bear directly on the welfare and happiness of human beings, a waste of
ingenuity; and yet, at the same time, he taught that all practical systems,
which left out of account the emotional and sentimental side of man, were
incomplete and ineffectual. This higher side of his nature showed itself in
his lively affections, his intense love of home and wife and children, his
lifelong tenacity of friendship, and his overflowing sympathy for the poor,
the abject, and the suffering.
"The haunts of Happiness," he wrote, "are varied, and rather
unaccountable; but I have more often seen her among little children,
and by home firesides, and in country houses, than anywhere else,--at
least, I think so."
When his mother died, he wrote--"Everyone must go to his grave with his
heart scarred like a soldier's body," and, when he lost his infant boy, he
said--"Children are horribly insecure; the life of a parent is the life of
a gambler."
His more material side was well exhibited by the catalogue of "Modern
Changes" which he compiled in old age, heading it with the characteristic
couplet:--
"The good of ancient times let others state,
I think it lucky I was born so late."[171]
It concludes with the words, "Even in the best society one third of the
gentlemen at least were always drunk."
This reminds us that, in the matter of temperance, Sydney Smith was far in
advance of his time.
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