he present refined and peaceful period,
to those of barbarism and bloodshed, or think of the pampered alderman
and the overworked and starving pauper.

Has, then, the general happiness of mankind actually varied with
different epochs? Were the lauded golden ages so much brighter than
these of the baser metal? No more so, perhaps, than, in spite of
Homer's assertion, were the heroes who contended on the plains of Troy
superior in stature or force to those on the plains of Waterloo. As
the human constitution accommodates itself to all climes, so our sense
of felicity fits itself to external circumstances; and thus the
quantity of happiness, or rather, sense of enjoyment, existing at
various ages of the world, may not have differed more than that which
we suppose to exist between contemporaneous individuals; and this
cannot be very great when we doubt whether the peasant would barter
his poverty for the wealth of the prince, on the condition, also, of
adding to his own years the fifteen or twenty additional winters that
have silvered the hair of his superior. Thus, at all events, a few
fleeting years annihilates the extremes of their lot.

The truth is, the cup of happiness is very limited, and that of most
men as replete as their sense of enjoyment can admit of; more than
this is superfluous, wasted, and unappreciated, or even, as it were,
condensed by the feeling of satiety which ensues; while, on the other
hand, the rarer sources of happiness to another man will expand and
fill the cup, blessed as he is with an "elasticity of spirits."
Happiness, too, being for the most part placed in perspective, becomes
equally distant or inaccessible to all, and seems to have been
purposely placed beyond our reach for the same reason that the old man
feigned to have concealed the treasure beneath the soil in order that
his sons might become rich by the culture of it, which they
necessarily, though unwittingly, effected in their search for the
gold; and thus our only happiness consists in our efforts to attain
the same, though the instant we become sensible of this, we find that
we have then indeed exhausted the cup, and like the rest that have
done so before us, take a long breath, and sigh, "all is vanity!" and
begin to think more intently and exclusively about the attainment of
our wishes in another world; for--

"Quand on a tout perdu, quand on n'a plus d'espoir,
La vie est un opprobre, et la mort un devoir."