]
This explains the fact that we generally find pleasure to be not
nearly so pleasant as we expected, and pain very much more painful.
The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or,
at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader
wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare
the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in
eating the other.
The best consolation in misfortune or affliction of any kind will
be the thought of other people who are in a still worse plight than
yourself; and this is a form of consolation open to every one. But
what an awful fate this means for mankind as a whole!
We are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of
the butcher, who chooses out first one and then another for his prey.
So it is that in our good days we are all unconscious of the evil Fate
may have presently in store for us--sickness, poverty, mutilation,
loss of sight or reason.
No little part of the torment of existence lies in this, that Time is
continually pressing upon us, never letting us take breath, but always
coming after us, like a taskmaster with a whip. If at any moment Time
stays his hand, it is only when we are delivered over to the misery of
boredom.
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