He
knows, indeed. that those who value themselves
upon sense, learning, or piety, speak of him with
contempt; but he considers them as wretches,
envious or ignorant, who do not know his happiness,
or wish to supplant him; and declares to his friends,
that he is fully satisfied with his own conduct, since
he has fed every day on twenty dishes, and yet
doubled his estate.
No. 207. TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1752
Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne
Peccet ad extremum ridendus.---- HOR. Lib. i. Ep. i. 8.
The voice of reason cries with winning force,
Loose from the rapid car your aged horse,
Lest, in the race derided, left behind,
He drag his jaded limbs and burst his wind. FRANCIS.
SUCH is the emptiness of human enjoyment,
that we are always impatient of the present.
Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession
by disgust; and the malicious remark of the Greek
epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to every
other course of life, that its two days of happiness
are the first and the last.
Few moments are more pleasing than those in
which the mind is concerting measures for a new
undertaking. From the first hint that weakens the
fancy, till the hour of actual execution, all is
improvement and progress, triumph and felicity.
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