To close tedious deliberations with hasty
resolves, and after long consultations with reason to
refer the question to caprice, is by no means peculiar
to the essayist. Let him that peruses this paper
review the series of his life, and inquire how he was
placed in his present condition. He will find, that
of the good or ill which he has experienced, a great
part came unexpected, without any visible gradations
of approach; that every event has been influenced
by causes acting without his intervention;
and that whenever he pretended to the prerogative
of foresight, he was mortified with new conviction
of the shortness of his views.
The busy, the ambitious, the inconstant, and the
adventurous, may be said to throw themselves by
design into the arms of fortune, and voluntarily to
quit the power of governing themselves; they engage
in a course of life in which little can be ascertained
by previous measures; nor is it any wonder that
their time is passed between elation and despondency,
hope and disappointment.
Some there are who appear to walk the road of
life with more circumspection, and make no step
till they think themselves secure from the hazard of a
precipice, when neither pleasure nor profit can tempt
them from the beaten path; who refuse to climb
lest they should fall, or to run lest they should
stumble, and move slowly forward without any
compliance with those passions by which the heady and
vehement are seduced and betrayed.
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