But this felicity is almost always abated by the reflection that they
with whom we should be most pleased to share it are now in the grave. A
few years make such havock in human generations, that we soon see
ourselves deprived of those with whom we entered the world, and whom the
participation of pleasures or fatigues had endeared to our remembrance.
The man of enterprise recounts his adventures and expedients, but is
forced, at the close of the relation, to pay a sigh to the names of
those that contributed to his success; he that passes his life among the
gayer part of mankind, has his remembrance stored with remarks and
repartees of wits, whose sprightliness and merriment are now lost in
perpetual silence; the trader, whose industry has supplied the want of
inheritance, repines in solitary plenty at the absence of companions,
with whom he had planned out amusements for his latter years; and the
scholar, whose merit, after a long series of efforts, raises him from
obscurity, looks round in vain from his exaltation for his old friends
or enemies, whose applause or mortification would heighten his triumph.
Among Martial's requisites to happiness is, _Res non parta labore, sed
relicta_, "an estate not gained by industry, but left by inheritance.
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