LETTER LVIII.
WORTHY to HARRINGTON.
You argue as if your reason were
perverted—Let your mind be employed, and
time will wear out these gloomy ideas; for
it is certainly a truth, that the love of life in
creases with age—Your letters, therefore, are
predicated on the most erroneous principles.
REMEMBER the story of the old man, who
had been buried in a dungeon the greater
part of his life, and who was liberated at an
advanced age. He viewed, once more, the
light of the sun, and the habitations of men
—he had come into a new order of beings,
but found their manners distasteful—In the
midst of the sunshine of the world, he remembered
the prison, where he had wasted
his life, and he sighed to be again immured
within its walls.
SUCH is our passion for life; we love it
because we know it; and our attachment becomes
the more riveted, the longer we are acquainted
with it—Our prison grows familiar
—we contemplate its horrours—but however
gloomy the walls that surround us,
there is not one but sets a full value on his
dreary existence—there is not one but finds
his partiality for his dungeon increase, in proportion
to the time he hath occupied it—for
among the race of human beings confined
to this narrow spot—how few are they who
are hardy enough to break their prison?
LET us watch over all we do with an eye
of scrutiny—the world will not examine the
causes that give birth to our actions—they
do not weigh the motives of them—they do
not consider those things which influence our
conduct—but as that conduct is more or less
advantageous to society, they deem it madness
or wisdom, or folly or prudence—Remember
this—
Adieu!
