that I cannot recommend you a better companiou.” "I have often been charmed with him at home," replied Lisaura; " and, as fond as you see me of idle amusement, I am not insensible to the excellences of so grave an author: I have been pleased to hear very good judges call him the English Demosthenes; and I have felt a secret delight in hearing applied to this noble orator, who (in spite of those pecu-. liar expressions, which the copiousness of his diction seems to call in from all parts) has so often warmed me with sentiments unknown before, what Longinus says of the other; that one might as well face the dazzling lightning, as stand against the force of his eloquence.-Bless me, how do I run on! You were teaching me to be happy: pursue the lesson. I have done." "I will tell you, then, my dear Lisaura: attend to me. Convinced by reason and religion, that the evils of life are mere phantoms, prepare yourself with resignation to submit to them, with constancy to support them. To lay in such a stock of strength, you must call in the assistance of many a leisure hour, of many a serious thought, of many an earnest resolution. By these means all will grow clear in your own mind; reflection will become your best friend and most agreeable companion; and, whatever destiny attends you, you will acquiesce in it with pleasure. "But your misfortune is that of a splenetic con : stitution; a day's slight disorder, a heavier temperament of the air, immediately affects you so, as to alter, to your fancy, the whole frame of nature. Fix it well in your mind that these gloomy imaginations are deceitful: the bountiful Creator was not mistaken, when, pleased with his completed work, he declared, that "all was good." The scheme of providence and nature is infinitely so; and its contemplation is an inexhaustible source of delight. Life has its gloomy scenes; but to the good, they only prove an awful exercise of duty, supported all the while by the assurance of reward life has its cheerful moments too, which, to the good, no sorrow can embitter. Thus, whilst the pleasures of religion, of benevolence, of friendship, of content, of gratitude, of every innocent gaiety, of free society, of lively mirth, of health, and all those infinite objects of delight which smiling nature offers us; whilst these are real and substantial enjoyments-that ill, which we might fear from the deprivation of some of them, and even of life itself, is proved to be a mere imaginary terror. This we have numberless opportunities of knowing; but blinded by passion, or weakened by constitution, we perpetually run into the common mistake: we form to ourselves such a false idea of human happiness, that when we might behold and be favoured by the goddess herself, we fly from her in a fright, because she is not adorned just with those trappings in which our fancy had dressed her out. Restless, we still shift from place to place, to find what we do not know when we see it; and restless we shall ever be, if, for a fit of the spleen, or an unanswered wish, we imagine that a just degree of happiness is not within every body's reach. My dear Lisaura, if you have any sense of gratitude to that Providence which formed you for happiness, avoid this gloomy error. Let refined reason fix your judgment, and, then, let common sense direct your practice." |