The Rambler - by S. Johnson and others Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: '5 Ni86. Saturday, December 28. 1751. Pone me, pigris ubi nulla campis Arlur eejlii'a recreatur aura Duke rldcntem Lalagen axsabc, Duke loqitenttm. ... more » Ho-i. OF the happinefs and mifery of our prefent Hate, part arifes from our fenfations, and part from our opinions; part is diftribu- ted by nature, and part is, in a great meafure, apportioned by ourfelves. Pofitive pleafure we cannot always obtain, and pofitive pain we often cannot remove. No man can give to his own plantations the fragrance of the Indian groves, nor will any precepts of philofophy enable him to withdraw his attention from wounds or difeafes. But the negative infelicity which proceeds, not from the prefiure of fufferings, but the abfence of enjoyments, will always yield to the remedies of reafon. One of the great arts of efcaping all fuperftuous uneaflnefs, is to free our minds from the habit of comparing our condition with that of others, on whom the bleffings of life are more bountifully beftowed, or with imaginary ftates of delight and fecurity, perhaps unattainable by mortals. Few are placed in a fituation fo gloomy and diftrefsful, as not to fee every day beings yet more forlorn and miferable, from whom they may learn to rejoice in their own lot. There is no inconvenience lefs fuperable by art or diligence, than the inclemency of climates; and therefore none which affords more proper ex- ercife for this philofophical abftraftion. A native of England, when he is pinched with the frofts of December, may leflen his affeftion for his own country, by fuffering his imagination to wander in the vales of Afia, and fport among woods that are always green, and ftreams that always murmur. But if he turns his thoughts towards the polar regions, and confiders the nations to whom a great part of th...« less