Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe."
All that happens in the world is directly or indirectly brought about by hope. Not a stroke of work would be done were it not in hopes of some glorious reward. It matters not that it generally paves the way to disappointment. Ph[oe]nix-like it rises from its ashes and bids us forget the disappointment of the present in the contemplation of future delights. Hope, then, is the principal antidote which keeps our hearts from bursting under the pressure of evils.
Some call hope the manna from heaven that comforts us in all extremities; others the pleasant flatterer that caresses the unhappy with expectations of happiness in the bosom of futurity. But if hope be a flatterer she is the most upright of all the flattering parasites, since she frequents the poor man's hut as well as the palace of his superiors. It is common to all men; those who possess nothing more are still cheered by hope. When all else fails us hope still abides with us.
Used with a due prudence hope acts as a healthful tonic; intemperately indulged, as an enervating opiate. The vision of future triumph, which at first animates exertion, if dwelt upon too strongly, will usurp the place of the reality, and noble objects will be contemplated, not for their own inherent worth, or with a design of compassing their execution, but for the day-dreams they engender. Hope sheds a sweet radiance on the stream of life, and never exerts her magic except to our advantage. We seldom attain what she beckons us to pursue, but her deceptions resemble those which the dying husbandman in the fable practiced upon his sons, who, by telling them of a hidden mass of wealth which he had buried in his vineyard, led them so carefully to delve the ground that they found, indeed, a treasure, though not in gold, in wine.
Reasonable hope is endowed with a vigorous principle; it sets the head and heart to work, and animates one to do his utmost, and thus, by perpetually pushing and assuring, it puts a difficulty out of countenance, and makes a seeming impossibility give way. Human life hath not a surer friend nor, many times, a greater enemy than hope. It is the miserable man's god, which, in the hardest grip of calamity, never fails to yield him beams of comfort. It is the presumptuous man's devil, which leads him awhile in a smooth way, and then lets him break his neck on the sudden.
How many would die did not hope sustain them! How many have died by hoping too much! This wonder may we find in hope—that she is both a flatterer and a true friend. True hope is based on energy of character. A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope, because it knows the mutability of human affairs, and how slight a circumstance may change the whole course of events. Such a spirit, too, rests upon itself; it is not confined to partial views, or to one particular object, and if at last all should be lost it has saved itself its own integrity and worth.
It is best to hope only for things possible and probable; he that hopes too much shall deceive himself at last, especially if his industry does not go along with his hopes, for hope without action is a barren undoer. Hope awakens courage, but despondency is the last of all evils; it is the abandonment of good—the giving up of the battle of life with dead nothingness. When the other emotions are controlled by events hope remains buoyant and undismayed,—unchanged, amidst the most adverse circumstances. Causes that effect, with depression, every other emotion appear to give fresh elasticity to hope. No oppression can crush its buoyancy; from under every weight it rebounds; amid the most depressing circumstances it preserves its cheering influence; no disappointment can annihilate its power; no experience can deter us from listening to its sweet illusions; it seems a counterpoise for misfortune, an equivalent for every disappointment.
It springs early into existence; it abides through all the changes of life, and reaches into the futurity of time. In the midst of disappointments it whispers consolation, and in all the arduous trials of life it is a strong staff and support. If, in the warmth of anticipation, it prepares the way for the very disappointments to which it afterwards administers relief it must be confessed that, in the severer inflictions of adversity, which come upon us unlooked for, and where previously the voice of sorrow was never heard, it then appears like an angel of mercy, and frequently assuages the anguish of suffering, and wipes the dropping tears from the eyes.
Hope lives in the future, but dies in the present. Its estate is one of expectancy. It draws large drafts on a small credit, which are seldom honored when presented at the bank of experience, but have the rare faculty of passing readily elsewhere. Hope calculates its schemes for a long and durable life, presses forward to imaginary points of bliss, and grasps at impossibilities, and, consequently, very often ensnares men into beggary, ruin, and dishonor. Hope is a great calculator, but a poor mathematician. Its problems are seldom based on true data, and their demonstration is more often fictitious than otherwise.