The Columbia Democrat. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1837-1850, 1837-04-29

sessing all that they require. or finding
what they sought, are still discontented.
Yet with what hypocrisy do we see
men act in this struggle between hope and
discomfort! Ask Probus if he is virtuous;
the very question marks doubt, and you
offend him. Ask him if he is avaricious,
and he is angry. Tell him his riches are
sufficient to procure all that can crafty rea-
sonable desires, and he shrugs his shOul-
ders and replies he is poor. Tell him how
much you envy his happiness, and he
shakes his head, hanging his eyebrows to
frown--he wants something: What is it,
Only to be Intimately acquainted with mis-
eEy for %hilel
1t is truly wonderful with what industry
| men become the artifcers of their own mis-
/ e4yS how assftNoGsiy they hircr sorrows
for Themselves, ont Of me supersbeadance
iof theirmeans OF haPpiaess.
The poor place happiness in We vofers
of the opulent; the rich, in power, vanity,
or ostentations change their conditions, and
Experience holds but temporary Influence
over their passions; they look back to their
former state, and are yet more unhappy.
They were taught alike to consider wealth
as the only foundation of happiness. They
were never ta'sgfa' how it can be employed
10 produce happiness, or what it is when
possessed,
He who seriously reflects that a Medium
of sixty years is perhaps the course Of his
existenceS that infancy and age are 70 be
deducted even from that portion Of life,
will perhaps consider ireslth and cheerful
hess as superior to vanity and riches. But,
alas! there arc few indeed who can adopt
a scale 80 simple, for their measure of en-
Ijoyment.
Emolen, however, is ore of these. He
has formed rule for converting even the
most trivial occurrences, into the means o.
pleasure. lie counts upon eighty years o
existence, of which he has spent fifty with
out bodily afIIiction: and this rare good for
tune he attribNtes 10 an early resolution
which he formed, to be always cheerful
Plain and Cleanly in his person, he neithe
apes the fcppery OF the silly, nor the stiff
ness Of the aNistere, The errors of whicl
he is witness, he generally attributes 70 an,
thing but natural disposition; and thougl
. l,,o, v~oRa kR M
blame the child for the vices of the parent
1t is his way to laugh folly out OF eounte
nance, rather than rebuke it; because it i
so much allied to prejudice, that to expos
it would be only to confirm it the more
c If he observes in the department Of tn
s young and gay of either sex, an hilarit
c mixed with Riirth, he does not frown wit
o severity and chide with moroseness; bt
S cause cheerfulness is rongenial with yout
r and innocence: aad because he consider
d restraint Of the natural temper the mean
d by which the vicious habits of cunning an
d duplicity are produced.
t, This perhaps is the effect Of the eduei
7; ton Of Emolen, but if it renders him haI
', py, superior even to riches or poverty, if
N renders life free from those turbulent an
al restless designs which produce so man
S, monsters, the plan of his education mil
t. at least be preferable to that which do'
le not exempt men from the influence of il
W constant passions and Unsuitable desires
is hopes that Rre never realised--Of wish'
e. that supersede activity by delndhg Il
he senses-uf prejudices that produce constal
W irritation-and hatreds, that render soeiet
re more horrible than the csEefns of beasts
G, prey.
e. ID.