LACONICS, &c.
Continued from page 53.)
Generosity is not the virtue of the multitude, and for this reason: selfishness is often the consequence of ignorance, and it requires a cultivated mind to discern where the rights of others interfere with our own wishes.
If commerce has benefited, it has also injured the human race; and the invention of the compass has brought disease as well as wealth in its train.
The days of joy are as long and perhaps as frequent as those of grief; but either the memory is treacherous or the mind is too morbid to admit this to be the case.
Without occasional seriousness and even melancholy, mirth loses its magic, and pleasure becomes unpalatable.
It is unlucky that experience being our best teacher, we have only learnt its lessons perfectly, when we no longer stand in need of them; and have provided ourselves armour we can never wear.
Chastity in women may be said to arise more from attention to worldly motives than deference to moral obligation: there is not so much continence amongst men, because there is not the same restriction.
A resolution to put up calmly with misfortune, invariably has the effect of lightening the load.