The prize which, though put in my hands,
had been suffered to slip from me, filled me with anguish, and knowing
that complaint would only expose me to ridicule, I gave myself up
silently to grief, and lost by degrees my appetite and my rest.
My indisposition soon became visible; I was visited by my friends, and
among them by Eumathes, a clergyman, whose piety and learning gave him
such an ascendant over me, that I could not refuse to open my heart.
There are, said he, few minds sufficiently firm to be trusted in the
hands of chance. Whoever finds himself inclined to anticipate futurity,
and exalt possibility to certainty, should avoid every kind of casual
adventure, since his grief must be always proportionate to his hope. You
have long wasted that time, which, by a proper application, would have
certainly, though moderately, increased your fortune, in a laborious and
anxious pursuit of a species of gain, which no labour or anxiety, no art
or expedient, can secure or promote. You are now fretting away your life
in repentance of an act, against which repentance can give no caution,
but to avoid the occasion of committing it. Rouse from this lazy dream
of fortuitous riches, which, if obtained, you could scarcely have
enjoyed, because they could confer no consciousness of desert; return to
rational and manly industry, and consider the mere gift of luck as below
the care of a wise man.
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