You cannot educate a
man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in
his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he
will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas,
mais je les crains,--"I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them,
nevertheless."
--As people grow older they come at length to live so much in memory that
they often think with a kind of pleasure of losing their dearest
blessings. Nothing can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem
when remembered. The friend we love best may sometimes weary us by his
presence or vex us by his infirmities. How sweet to think of him as he
will be to us after we have outlived him ten or a dozen years! Then we
can recall him in his best moments, bid him stay with us as long as we
want his company, and send him away when we wish to be alone again. One
might alter Shenstone's well-known epitaph to suit such a case:--
Hen! quanto minus est cum to vivo versari
Quam erit (vel esset) tui mortui reminisse!
"Alas! how much less the delight of thy living presence
Than will (or would) be that of remembering thee when thou hast
left us!"
I want to stop here--I the Poet--and put in a few reflections of my own,
suggested by what I have been giving the reader from the Master's Book,
and in a similar vein.
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