Prosperity and Adversity.
The virtue of prosperity is temperance. The virtue of adversity is fortitude. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroidery it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground. Judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly, virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
The great Condé.
Condé.
“On marche lentement, sous le poids des Lauriers,” was the answer of Louis XIV. to the apology of the great, but gouty Condé, for detaining him on the staircase of Versailles.
Resignation.
“The miseries, the calamities, the heart-rendings, and the tears, which are so intimately interwoven by the great Artist in our natures as not to be separated in a single instance, are in the first place, our security of a future state, and in the next place, seem to slope the way before us, and by gradual operation fit our minds for viewing, with some sort of fortitude, that hideous chasm that lies between us and that state, death. View those miseries, then, as the special acts of mercy and commiseration of a beneficent Creator, who with every calamity, melts away a link of that earthly chain that fetters our wishes to this dismal world. Accept his blessings and his goods when he sends them, with gratitude and enjoyment; receive his afflictions too with as joyous acceptance, and as hearty gratitude.
Thus, and not otherwise, you will realize all your Utopian flights of desire; by turning every thing to matter of comfort, and living contented with dispensations which you cannot alter, and if you could, would most assuredly alter for the worse. So limited is man, so imperfect in his nature, that the extent of his virtues borders on vice, and the extent of his wisdom on error.”