We only desire repose to recruit our limited
and our wasting force: when business fatigues, amusement is often but a
change of occupation. We are not always unhappy, even when we complain.
There is a kind of affliction which makes an agreeable state of the mind;
and lamentation itself is sometimes an expression of pleasure. The painter
and the poet have laid hold of this handle, and find, among the means of
entertainment, a favourable reception for works that are composed to awaken
our sorrows.
To a being of this description, therefore, it is a blessing to meet with
incentives to action, whether in the desire of pleasure, or the aversion to
pain. His activity is of more importance than the very pleasure he seeks,
and languor a greater evil than the suffering he shuns.
The gratifications of animal appetite are of short duration; and sensuality
is but a distemper of the mind, which ought to be cured by remembrance, if
it were not perpetually inflamed by hope. The chase is not more surely
terminated by the death of the game, than the joys of the voluptuary by the
means of completing his debauch.
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