Complete. From the Bee.

WHEN I reflect on the unambitious retirement in which I passed the earlier part of my life in the country, I can not avoid feeling some pain in thinking that those happy days are never to return. In that retreat all nature seemed capable of affording pleasure: I then made no refinements on happiness, but could be pleased with the most awkward efforts of rustic mirth; thought cross-purposes the highest stretch of human wit, and questions and commands the most rational amusement for spending the evening. Happy could so charming an illusion still continue! I find age and knowledge only contribute to sour our dispositions. My present enjoyments may be more refined, but they are infinitely less pleasing. The pleasure Garrick gives can no way compare to that I have received from a country wag who imitated a Quaker’s sermon. The music of Matei is dissonance to what I felt when our old dairymaid sung me into tears with “Johnny Armstrong’s Last Good-Night,” or “The Cruelty of Barbara Allen.”

  Writers of every age have endeavored to show that pleasure is in us, and not in the objects offered for our amusement. If the soul be happily disposed, everything becomes a subject of entertainment, and distress will almost want a name. Every occurrence passes in review like the figures of a procession: some may be awkward, others ill dressed; but none but a fool is for this enraged with the master of the ceremonies.

  I remember to have once seen a slave in a fortification in Flanders, who appeared no way touched with his situation. He was maimed, deformed, and chained; obliged to toil from the appearance of day till nightfall, and condemned to this for life; yet, with all these circumstances of apparent wretchedness, he sung, would have danced, but that he wanted a leg, and appeared the merriest, happiest man of all the garrison. What a practical philosopher was here! a happy constitution supplied philosophy, and though seemingly destitute of wisdom, he was really wise. No reading or study had contributed to disenchant the fairyland around him. Every thing furnished him with an opportunity of mirth; and though some thought him from his insensibility a fool, he was such an idiot as philosophers might wish in vain to imitate.

  They who, like him, can place themselves on that side of the world in which everything appears in a ridiculous or pleasing light will find something in every occurrence to excite their good humor. The most calamitous events, either to themselves or others, can bring no new affliction; the whole world is to them a theatre, on which comedies only are acted. All the bustle of heroism, or the rants of ambition, serve only to heighten the absurdity of the scene, and make the humor more poignant. They feel, in short, as little anguish at their own distress, or the complaints of others, as the undertaker, though dressed in black, feels sorrow at a funeral.

  Of all the men I ever read of, the famous Cardinal de Retz possessed this happiness of temper in the highest degree. As he was a man of gallantry, and despised all that wore the pedantic appearance of philosophy, wherever pleasure was to be sold he was generally foremost to raise the auction. Being a universal admirer of the fair sex, when he found one lady cruel he generally fell in love with another, from whom he expected a more favorable reception; if she too rejected his addresses, he never thought of retiring into deserts, or pining in hopeless distress,—he persuaded himself that instead of loving the lady, he only fancied he had loved her, and so all was well again. When Fortune wore her angriest look, when he at last fell into the power of his most deadly enemy, Cardinal Mazarin and was confined a close prisoner in the castle of Vincennes, he never attempted to support his distress by wisdom or philosophy, for he pretended to neither. He laughed at himself and his persecutor, and seemed infinitely pleased at his new situation. In this mansion of distress, though secluded from his friends, though denied all the amusements, and even the conveniences of life, teased every hour by the impertinence of wretches who were employed to guard him, he still retained his good humor, laughed at all their little spite, and carried the jest so far as to be revenged by writing the life of his gaoler.

  All that philosophy can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes. The Cardinal’s example will instruct us to be merry in circumstances of the highest affliction. It matters not whether our good humor be construed by others into insensibility, or even idiotism; it is happiness to ourselves, and none but a fool would measure his satisfaction by what the world thinks of it.

  Dick Wildgoose was one of the happiest silly fellows I ever knew. He was of the number of those good-natured creatures that are said to do no harm to any but themselves. Whenever Dick fell into any misery, he usually called it seeing life. If his head was broke by a chairman, or his pocket picked by a sharper, he comforted himself by imitating the Hibernian dialect of the one, or the more fashionable cant of the other. Nothing came amiss to Dick. His inattention to money matters had incensed his father to such a degree that all the intercession of friends in his favor was fruitless. The old gentleman was on his deathbed. The whole family, and Dick among the number, gathered round him. “I leave my second son Andrew,” said the expiring miser, “my whole estate, and desire him to be frugal.” Andrew, in a sorrowful tone, as is usual on these occasions, “prayed Heaven to prolong his life and health to enjoy it himself.” “I recommend Simon, my third son, to the care of his elder brother, and leave him beside four thousand pounds.” “Ah, father!” cried Simon, (in great affliction to be sure), “may Heaven give you life and health to enjoy it yourself!” At last, turning to poor Dick, “As for you, you have always been a sad dog, you’ll never come to good, you’ll never be rich; I’ll leave you a shilling to buy a halter.” “Ah, father!” cries Dick, without any emotion, “may Heaven give you life and health to enjoy it yourself!” This was all the trouble the loss of fortune gave this thoughtless, imprudent creature. However, the tenderness of an uncle recompensed the neglect of a father; and Dick is not only excessively good-humored, but competently rich.

  The world, in short, may cry out at a bankrupt who appears at a ball; at an author, who laughs at the public which pronounces him a dunce; at a general, who smiles at the reproach of the vulgar; or the lady who keeps her good-humor in spite of scandal; but such is the wisest behavior they can possibly assume. It is certainly a better way to oppose calamity by dissipation than to take up the arms of reason or resolution to oppose it: by the first method we forget our miseries, by the last we only conceal them from others. By struggling with misfortunes, we are sure to receive some wounds in the conflict; the only method to come off victorious is by running away.