CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL
CONTENTS
THE SISTERS OF CHARITY IN BOHEMIA.
ADVENTURES OF AN ARMY PHYSICIAN.
CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNALCONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'SINFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
| No. 420. NEW SERIES. | SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 1852. | PRICE 1½d. |
HOW IS THE WORLD USING YOU?
This is a very common question, usually put and answered with moreor less levity. We seldom hear of any one answering very favourablyas to the usage he experiences from the world. More generally, thequestioned seems to feel that his treatment is not, and never hasbeen, quite what it ought to be. It has sometimes occurred to me,that a great oversight is committed in our so seldom putting toourselves the co-relative question: What have I done to make theworld use me well? What merit have I shewn—by what good intentiontowards the world have I been animated—what has been the positiveamount of those services of mine on which I found my pretensions tothe world's rewards? All of these are interrogations which it wouldbe necessary to answer satisfactorily before we could be trulyentitled to take measure of the world's goodness to us in return;for surely it is not to be expected that the world is to pay in mereexpectancy: time enough, in all conscience, when the service hasbeen rendered, or at soonest, when a reasonable ground of hope hasbeen established that it will not be withheld or performedslightingly. Only too much room there is to fear that, if thesequestions were put and faithfully answered, the ordinary resultwould be a conviction that the world had used us quite as well as wedeserved.
Men are of course prevented from going through this process by theirself-love. Unwillingness to see or own their shortcomings, keepsthem in a sort of delusion on the subject. Well, I do not hope tomake an extensive change upon them in this respect; but perhaps itmay not be impossible to rouse one here and there to the correctview, and thus accomplish a little good.
Let us address ourselves to commercial life first, for the labour bywhich man lives is at the bottom of everything. Here we meet the nowwell-recognised principle in political economy, that generallywages, salaries, remunerat