‘I have been thinking all this time of your position,’ said Sidonia.
‘A sorry one, I fear,’ said Coningsby.
‘I really cannot see that,’ said his friend. ‘You have experienced this morning a disappointment, but not a calamity. If you had lost your eye it would have been a calamity: no combination of circumstances could have given you another. There are really no miseries except natural miseries; conventional misfortunes are mere illusions. What seems conventionally, in a limited view, a great misfortune, if subsequently viewed in its results, is often the happiest incident in one’s life.’
‘I hope the day may come when I may feel this.’
‘Now is the moment when philosophy is of use; that is to say, now is the moment when you should clearly comprehend the circumstances which surround you. Holiday philosophy is mere idleness. You think, for example, that you have just experienced a great calamity, because you have lost the fortune on which you counted?’
‘I must say I do.’
‘I ask you again, which would you have rather lost, your grandfather’s inheritance or your right leg?’
‘Most certainly my inheritance,’
‘Or your left arm?’
‘Still the inheritance.’