No man could have
been more successful than Goethe--possessed of splendid health,
honour, power, and sufficiency of this world's goods--and yet he
confessed that he had not, in the course of his life, enjoyed five
weeks of genuine pleasure. So the Caliph Abdalrahman, in
surveying his successful reign of fifty years, found that he had
enjoyed only fourteen days of pure and genuine happiness. (18)
After this, might it not be said that the pursuit of mere
happiness is an illusion?
Life, all sunshine without shade, all happiness without sorrow,
all pleasure without pain, were not life at all--at least not
human life. Take the lot of the happiest--it is a tangled yarn.
It is made up of sorrows and joys; and the joys are all the
sweeter because of the sorrows; bereavements and blessings, one
following another, making us sad and blessed by turns. Even death
itself makes life more loving; it binds us more closely together
while here. Dr. Thomas Browne has argued that death is one of the
necessary conditions of human happiness; and he supports his
argument with great force and eloquence. But when death comes
into a household, we do not philosophise--we only feel. The
eyes that are full of tears do not see; though in course of
time they come to see more clearly and brightly than those
that have never known sorrow.
The wise person gradually learns not to expect too much from life.
Pages:
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473