That life is short we are all convinced, and yet suffer not that
conviction to repress our projects or limit our expectations; that life
is miserable we all feel, and yet we believe that the time is near when
we shall feel it no longer. But to hope happiness and immortality is
equally vain. Our state may indeed be more or less embittered as our
duration may be more or less contracted; yet the utmost felicity which
we can ever attain will be little better than alleviation of misery, and
we shall always feel more pain from our wants than pleasure from our
enjoyments. The incident which I am going to relate will shew, that to
destroy the effect of all our success, it is not necessary that any
signal calamity should fall upon us, that we should be harassed by
implacable persecution, or excruciated by irremediable pains: the
brightest hours of prosperity have their clouds, and the stream of life,
if it is not ruffled by obstructions, will grow putrid by stagnation.
My father, resolving not to imitate the folly of his ancestors, who had
hitherto left the younger sons encumbrances on the eldest, destined me
to a lucrative profession; and I, being careful to lose no opportunity
of improvement, was, at the usual time in which young men enter the
world, well qualified for the exercise of the business which I had
chosen.
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