I do not believe your habitual customers have their ideas more
enlarged than one of your coach-horses. They KNOWS the road,
like the English postilion, and they know nothing besides. They
date, like the carriers at Gadshill, from the death of Robin
Ostler; [See Act II. Scene 1 of the First Part of Shakespeare's
Henry IV.] the succession of guards forms a dynasty in their
eyes; coachmen are their ministers of state; and an upset is to
them a greater incident than a change of administration. Their
only point of interest on the road is to save the time, and see
whether the coach keeps the hour. This is surely a miserable
degradation of human intellect. Take my advice, my good sir, and
disinterestedly contrive that once or twice a quarter your most
dexterous whip shall overturn a coachful of these superfluous
travellers, IN TERROREM to those who, as Horace says, "delight in
the dust raised by your chariots."
Your current and customary mail-coach passenger, too, gets
abominably selfish, schemes successfully for the best seat, the
freshest egg, the right cut of the sirloin. The mode of
travelling is death to all the courtesies and kindnesses of life,
and goes a great way to demoralize the character, and cause it to
retrograde to barbarism.
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