from anything or any
condition in life: he will spend passion upon nothing in the world,
nor lament over-much if he fails in any of his undertakings. He
will feel the deep truth of what Plato[1] says: [Greek: oute ti ton
anthropinon haxion on megalaes spondaes]--nothing in human affairs is
worth any great anxiety; or, as the Persian poet has it,

_Though from thy grasp all worldly things should flee,
Grieve not for them, for they are nothing worth:
And though a world in thy possession be,
Joy not, for worthless are the things of earth.
Since to that better world 'tis given to thee
To pass, speed on, for this is nothing worth._[2]

[Footnote 1: _Republic_, x. 604.]

[Footnote 2: _Translator's Note_. From the Anvar-i Suhaili--_The
Lights of Canopus_--being the Persian version of the _Table of
Bidpai_. Translated by E.B. Eastwick, ch. iii. Story vi., p. 289.]

The chief obstacle to our arriving at these salutary views is that
hypocrisy of the world to which I have already alluded--an hypocrisy
which should be early revealed to the young. Most of the glories of
the world are mere outward show, like the scenes on a stage: there
is nothing real about them. Ships festooned and hung with pennants,
firing of cannon, illuminations, beating of drums and blowing of
trumpets, shouting and applauding--these are all the outward sign, the
pretence and suggestion,--as it were the hieroglyphic,--of _joy_: but
just there, joy is, as a rule, not to be found; it is the only guest
who has declined to be present at the festival. Where this guest may
really be found, he comes generally without invitation; he is not
formerly announced, but slips in quietly by himself _sans facon_;
often making his appearance under the most unimportant and trivial
circumstances, and in the commonest company--anywhere, in short, but
where the society is brilliant and distinguished. Joy is like the gold
in the Australian mines--found only now and then, as it were, by the
caprice of chance, and according to no rule or law; oftenest in very
little grains, and very seldom in heaps. All that outward show which I
have described, is only an attempt to make people believe that it
is really joy which has come to the festival; and to produce this
impression upon the spectators is, in fact, the whole object of it.

With _mourning_ it is just the same. That long funeral procession,
moving up so slowly; how melancholy it looks! what an endless row of