There
the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' Be very
sure that the guilt of being born carries this punishment at times to all
men; but how can they ask for pity, or complain of any mischief that may
befall them, having entered open-eyed into the snare?
"One word more and we have done. If any faint remembrance, as of a
dream, flit in some puzzled moment across your brain, and you shall feel
that the potion which is to be given you shall not have done its work,
and the memory of this existence which you are leaving endeavours vainly
to return; we say in such a moment, when you clutch at the dream but it
eludes your grasp, and you watch it, as Orpheus watched Eurydice, gliding
back again into the twilight kingdom, fly--fly--if you can remember the
advice--to the haven of your present and immediate duty, taking shelter
incessantly in the work which you have in hand. This much you may
perhaps recall; and this, if you will imprint it deeply upon your every
faculty, will be most likely to bring you safely and honourably home
through the trials that are before you." {47}
This is the fashion in which they reason with those who would be for
leaving them, but it is seldom that they do much good, for none but the
unquiet and unreasonable ever think of being born, and those who are
foolish enough to think of it are generally foolish enough to do it.
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