There appeared to me a wonderful similitude between the two. It is probable, however, that a Frenchman would perceive a difference where I could not. A foreigner does not observe the different accents in which an Englishman, a Scotchman, and an Irishman speak English; neither perhaps does he observe any difference between the manners and address of the inhabitants of Bristol, and those of Grosvenor-square, though all these are obvious to a native of England.
After a short stay at Lyons, we proceeded to Geneva, and here we have remained these three weeks, without feeling the smallest inclination to shift the scene. That I should wish to remain here is no way surprising, but it was hardly to be expected that the D—— of H—— would have been of the same mind.—Fortunately, however, this is the case.—I know no place on the continent to which we could go with any probability of gaining by the change: The opportunities of improvement here are many, the amusements are few in number, and of a moderate kind: The hours glide along very smoothly, and though they are not always quickened by pleasure, they are unretarded by languor and unruffled by remorse.
As for myself, I have been so very often and so miserably disappointed in my hopes of happiness by change, that I shall not, without some powerful motive, incline to forego my present state of content, for the chance of more exquisite enjoyments in a different place or situation.
I have at length learnt by my own experience (for not one in twenty profits by the experience of others), that one great source of vexation proceeds from our indulging too sanguine hopes of enjoyment from the blessings we expect, and too much indifference for those we possess. We scorn a thousand sources of satisfaction which we might have had in the interim, and permit our comfort to be disturbed, and our time to pass unenjoyed, from impatience for some imagined pleasure at a distance, which we may perhaps never obtain, or which, when obtained, may change its nature, and be no longer pleasure. Young says,
The present moment, like a wife, we shun,
And ne’er enjoy, because it is our own.
The devil thus cheats men both out of the enjoyment of this life and of that which is to come, making us in the first place prefer the pleasures of this life to those of a future state, and then continually prefer future pleasures in this life to those which are present.
The sum of all these apophthegms amounts to this:—We shall certainly remain at Geneva till we become more tired of it than at present.