This is perhaps
one reason, among many, why age delights in
narratives.
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.
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