IF this unhappy Worm had been as despicable as the other reptils that crept up and down the Hedge, whence I took him, he might, as well as they, have been left there still, and his own Obscurity, as well as that of the Night, had preserv’d him from the confinement he now suffers. And if, as he sometimes for a pretty while withdrew that Luminous Liquor, that is as it were the Candle to this small dark Lanthorn, he had continued to forbear the disclosing of it, he might have deluded my search, and escap’d his present Confinement.
Rare Qualities may sometimes be Prerogatives, without being Advantages. And though a needless Ostentation of ones Excellencies may be more glorious, a modest Concealment of them is usually more safe: And an unseasonable disclosure of flashes of Wit, may sometimes do a Man no other service, than to direct his Adversaries how they may do him a mischief.
And as though this Worm be lodg’d in a Crystalline Prison, through which it has the Honour to be gaz’d at by many Eyes, and among them, by some that are said to shine far more in the Day than this Creature do’s in the Night; yet no doubt, if he could express a sense of the Condition he is in, he would bewail it, and think himself unhappy in an excellency, which procures him at once Admiration and Captivity, by the former of which he does but give others a Pleasure, while in the latter he himself resents a Misery.
This oftentimes is the fate of a great Wit, whom the Advantage he has of ordinary Men in Knowledge, the Light of the Mind exposes to so many effects of other Men’s Importunate Curiosity, as to turn his Prerogative into a Trouble: The light that ennobles him, tempts Inquisitive Men to keep him, as upon the like score we do this Glow-worm, from sleeping: And his Conspicuousness is not more a Friend to his fame, than an Enemy to his quiet; for Men allow such much Praise, but little Rest. They attract the Eyes of others, but are not suffer’d to shut their own, and find, that by a very disadvantagious Bargain, they are reduc’d for that imaginary good, call’d Fame, to pay that real Blessing, Liberty.
And, as though this Luminous Creature be himself imprison’d in so close a Body as Glass, yet the Light that ennobles him, is not thereby restrain’d from diffusing it self: So there are certain Truths, that have in them so much of native Light or Evidence, that by the personal Distresses of the proposer, it cannot be hidden, or restrain’d; but in spight of Prisons, it shines freely, and procures the Teachers of it Admiration, ev’n when it cannot procure them Liberty.
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