Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

joyments, a few good books, which teach me to become better: they even make the world, which I have quitted, still contribute to my happiness, by presenting me with pictures of those passions which render its inhabitants so miserable; and, by the comparison which I make between their condition and my own, they procure for me a negative felicity. Like a man saved from shipwreck, seated on a rock, I contemplate,

in

my solitude, the storms which are raging in the rest of the world; nay, my tranquillity is increased by the fury of the distant tempest. Since men stand no longer in my way, and since I am no longer in theirs, I have ceased to hate, and now I pity them. p. 283.

If I meet with any miserable wretch, I try to assist him by my counsels-I however have found innocence alone attentive to my voice. Amongst a great number of unhappy creatures whom I have sometimes endeavoured to bring back to nature, I have not found a single one who was not intoxicated with his own miseries. They listened

to me at first with attention in hopes that I was going to assist them in acquiring either glory or riches, but perceiving that I only meant to teach them to do without these things, they looked upon me myself as a miserable wretch, because I did not pursue their wretched felicity.

I compare those successive tribes of men, whom I have seen contending with so much fury, about mere chimeras, and who are now no more, to the little waves of my rivulet, which, foaming, dash themselves against the rocks of its bed, and then disappear, never more to return. p. 284.

As she always employed her minutest actions for the benefit of others, she never ate a fruit in the country without planting its seed, or its kernel in the earth. "Trees," said she, "will spring from these, which may, one day, give their fruits to some traveller, or at least, to some bird." p. 286.

By objects, which we habitually behold, we are unable to perceive with what ra

pidity our life passes away; they, as well as ourselves, grow old, with an imperceptible decay but those, which we suddenly see again, after several years absence, admonish us of the swiftness with which the stream of our days flows on.

p. 287.

My son, replied I, that courage which makes us rush on to meet death, is the courage of only a single moment. It is often excited by the vain applause of man. There is a species of courage more rare, and still more necessary, which enables us daily to support the misfortunes of life, without a witness, and without praise; what I mean is patience. It rests not on the opinion of another, nor on the impulse of our own passions, but on the will of God. Patience is the courage of virtue. p. 301.

Beneficence is the happiness of virtue; there is none greater, or more certain, on the earth. Projects of pleasure, of repose, of enjoyment, of abundance, and of glory, are not made for feeble man, who is only a

traveller, and a passenger, through this world. p. 321.

Examine those men who appear the most happy, and you will find that they have purchased their pretended enjoyments very dearly; public respectability, by domestic distresses; riches, by the loss of health; the rare pleasure of being beloved, by continual sacrifices; and, often, at the close of a life devoted to the interests of another, they see nothing around them but false friends, and ungrateful relations.

She was prepared to meet the future, by the innocence of her past life, and she then received the reward, which Heaven reserves for virtue, a courage superior to danger. She encountered death with a serene countenance. p. 323.

There is a God, my son; all nature announces it; there is no occasion to prove it to you. Nothing but the wickedness of men could make them deny a Justice which they contemplate with terror. A sentiment

of him is in your heart, in like manner as his works are before your eyes. p. 324.

The consolation which I endeavoured to administer, only served to aggravate his despair.

Lively characters, over whom slight troubles slide easily away, are the least able to withstand heavy calamities. p. 326.

I replied, My friend, I believe that nothing happens in the world without the permission of God. Dreams sometimes announce truth.

The opinion, that truth is sometimes conveyed to us in sleep. is universally propagated over all the nations of the earth. The greatest men of antiquity have adopted. it; among others, Alexander, Cæsar, the Scipios, the two Catos, and Brutus, who were none of them men of weak minds. The Old and New Testaments have furnished us with many instances of dreams which were verified. For my own part, I have no occasion for any higher proof on

[blocks in formation]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »