LETTER LX.
HARRINGTON to WORTHY.
How vain is the wish that sighs
for the enjoyment of worldly happiness.
Our imagination dresses up a phantom to
impose on our reason: As Pygmalion loved
the work of his own hand—so do we fall
in love with the offspring of our brain. But
our work illudes our embrace—we find no
substance in it—and then fall a weeping and
complain of disappointment. Miserable
reasoners are we all.
WHY should I mourn the loss of Harriot
any longer? Such is my situation—in the
midst of anxiety and distress, I complain of
what cannot be remedied.—I lament the
loss of that which is irretrievable: So on
the sea-beat shore, the hopeless maid, unmindful
of the storm, bewails her drowned
lover.
