But so full is the world of calamity, that every source of pleasure is
polluted, and every retirement of tranquillity disturbed. When time has
supplied us with events sufficient to employ our thoughts, it has
mingled them with so many disasters, that we shrink from their
remembrance, dread their intrusion upon our minds, and fly from them as
from enemies that pursue us with torture.
No man past the middle point of life can sit down to feast upon the
pleasures of youth without finding the banquet embittered by the cup of
sorrow; he may revive lucky accidents, and pleasing extravagancies; many
days of harmless frolick, or nights of honest festivity, will perhaps
recur; or, if he has been engaged in scenes of action, and acquainted
with affairs of difficulty and vicissitudes of fortune, he may enjoy the
nobler pleasure of looking back upon distress firmly supported, dangers
resolutely encountered, and opposition artfully defeated. Aeneas
properly comforts his companions, when, after the horrours of a storm,
they have landed on an unknown and desolate country, with the hope that
their miseries will be at some distant time recounted with delight.
There are few higher gratifications, than that of reflection on
surmounted evils, when they are not incurred nor protracted by our
fault, and neither reproach us with cowardice nor guilt.
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