It may likewise contribute to soften that resentment which pride naturally raises against opposition, if we consider, that he who differs from us, does not always contradict us; he has one view of an object, and we have another; each describes what he sees with equal fidelity, and each regulates his steps by his own eyes:  one man with Posidippus, looks on celibacy as a state of gloomy solitude, without a partner in joy, or a comforter in sorrow; the other considers it, with Metrodorus, as a state free from incumbrances, in which a man is at liberty to choose his own gratifications, to remove from place to place in quest of pleasure, and to think of nothing but merriment and diversion:  full of these notions one hastens to choose a wife, and the other laughs at his rashness, or pities his ignorance; yet it is possible that each is right, but that each is right only for himself.

Life is not the object of science:  we see a little, very little; and what is beyond we only can conjecture.  If we inquire of those who have gone before us, we receive small satisfaction; some have travelled life without observation, and some willingly mislead us.  The only thought, therefore, on which we can repose with comfort, is that which presents to us the care of Providence, whose eye takes in the whole of things, and under whose direction all involuntary errours will terminate in happiness.

[1] Livy has described the Achaean leader, Philopaemen, as actually so
    exercising his thoughts whilst he wandered among the rocky passes of
    the Morea, xxxv. 28.  In the graphic page of the Roman historian, as
    in the stanzas of the “Ariosto of the North:” 

  “From shingles grey the lances start,
  The bracken bush sends forth the dart,
  The rushes and the willow wand
  Are bristling into axe and brand.” 
       Lady of the Lake, Canto v. 9.

[2]
  “Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,
    Count o’er thy days from anguish free,
  And know, whatever thou hast been,
    ’Tis something better not to be.” 
             Lord Byron’s Euthanasia.

Compare also the plaintive chorus in the Oedipus at Colonos, 1211. 
Among the tragedies of Sophocles this stands forth a mass of
feeling.  See Schlegel’s remarks upon it in his Dramatic Literature.

No. 108.  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1753.

  Nobis, quum semet occidit brevis lux,
  Nox est perpetua una dormienda. CATULLUS.  Lib. v.  El. v.

  When once the short-liv’d mortal dies,
  A night eternal seals his eyes.  ADDISON.

It may have been observed by every reader, that there are certain topicks which never are exhausted.  Of some images and sentiments the mind of man may be said to be enamoured; it meets them, however often they occur, with the same ardour which a lover feels at the sight of his mistress, and parts from them with the same regret when they can no longer be enjoyed.