when we consider the short duration of human life, when extended even to its longest period, and the many perplexities, cares, and anxities, which contribute to disturb the repose of even those whom we should be led to consider as happy mortals, what is there in our sublunary pursuits that ought to make any long and lasting impression on our minds?
we have seen many of the wisest people, on the loss of a darling child, or on a sudden and unexpected wreck in their affairs, retire from the world, and endeavour to seek consolation, by indulging their melancholy in some gloomy retreat. surely, however, nothing can be more inconsistent with the dignity of human nature than such a conduct.
if to fly from the face of an enemy in the hour of battle, and seek a retreat in some sequestered forest, may be considered as cowardice in the soldier, is it no less so in the moral militant, who has not courage to face the storms of fortune, but precipitately flies from the field of adversity, the ground of which he ought to dispute inch by inch?
it has been an old and long-received maxim, that fortune favours the daring, and shuns the coward. whatever may be the whims and caprice of dame fortune, who sometimes makes a peer of a beggar, and as often reduces the peer to a state of penury, yet experience tells us, that she is seldom able, for any considerable length of time, to withstand resolute and unremitted importunities; and, when she has hurled us to the bottom of her wheel, whatever motion that wheel afterwards makes, it must throw us upwards. as those, who have enjoyed a good state of health during the prime of their lives, feel the infirmities of age, or a sudden sickness, more keenly than those who have laboured under a weakly and sickly constitution; so those, who have basked in the perpetual sunshine of fortune, are more susceptible of the horrors of unexpected calamities, than those who have been rocked in the cradle of misfortune.
to bear prosperity and adversity with equal prudence and fortitude is, perhaps, one of the greatest difficulties we have to conquer; and it is from hence we may venture to form our opinions of the generality of people. those who are insolent in prosperity will be mean in adversity; but he who meets adversity with manly courage and fortitude, will, in the hour of prosperity, be humane, gentle, and generous.
to fly from misfortunes, and endeavour to console ourselves by retiring from the world, is undoubtedly increasing the evil we wish to lessen. this has often been the case of disappointed lovers, when the object of their hearts has proved inconstant or ungrateful. they have vainly imagined that there must be something very soothing to the afflicted mind, in listening to the plaintive sound of some purling and meandering stream, or in uttering their plaints to the gentle breezes and the nodding groves. but, alas! these delusive consolations only contribute to feed the disorders of the mind, and increase the evil, till melancholy takes deep root in their souls, and renders their complaints incurable.
the society of the polite and refined of both sexes is the only relief, at least the principal one, for any uneasiness of the mind. here a variety of objects will insensibly draw our attention from that one which tyrannises in our bosom, and endeavours to exclude all others.
in the commerce of this life there is hardly an evil which has not some good attending it; nor a blessing which does not, in some degree or other, carry with it some bitter ingredient. to be, therefore, too confident in prosperity, is a folly; and to despair in adversity, is madness.
those who enjoy the good while they have it in their power, and support the evil without sinking under its weight, are surely best fitted for this uncertain and transitory state. to have too nice and delicate feelings is, perhaps, a misfortune; and the wise man has very justly said, "as we increase in knowledge, so we increase in sorrow."
we are apt to form too great an opinion of ourselves, and to examine so closely into the conduct of others, that we at last begin to shun and despise all the world, in whom we can find no belief; but were we to examine our own conduct as critically, we should find, that we have as much to ask from the candour of others, as we have cause to give. self-love and pride are the sources from whence flow most of our real, as well as imaginary woes; and if we seek the retired and sequestered hut, it is not so much with a view to avoid misery itself, as to endeavour to conceal it in ourselves from the eyes of the world.
