Instances like this should impress upon us the fact that the principal
sum of our happiness is inalienable. We cannot, in health, possibly lose
it. The hale pauper is far better off than the invalid Duke. We breathe
and eat and see and hear with ease. All of those offices of the body are
unquestionably delightful, as is proven by the relative view we get when
we are ill and can neither breathe nor eat nor see nor hear without
great suffering. "There is scarce any lot so low," says Sterne, "but
there is something in it to satisfy the man whom it has befallen." The
reason of this lies in this same fact that when the tree of happiness
loses superfluous wealth, it but loses its foliage.
THE POOR MAN CARRIES INTO HIS COTTAGE
all the great and marvelous blessings of life. He leaves outside only a
lot of artificialities, the most of which are so-called pleasures, but
are really miseries. If we cannot be contented without these
artificialities, we certainly would not be satisfied with an addition so
unimportant. "A tub was large enough for Diogenes," says Colton; "but a
world was too little for Alexander.
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