and to smooth the way for our posterity. If it indeed be that;
if the efforts of the virtuous now, are to make the future inhabitants
of this fair world more happy; if the labours of those who cast aside
selfishness, and try to know the truth of things, are to free the men
of ages, now far distant but which will one day come, from the burthen
under which those who now live groan, and like you weep bitterly; if
they free them but from one of what are now the necessary evils of
life, truly I will not fail but will with my whole soul aid the work.
From my youth I have said, I will be virtuous; I will dedicate my life
for the good of others; I will do my best to extirpate evil and if the
spirit who protects ill should so influence circumstances that I
should suffer through my endeavour, yet while there is hope and hope
there ever must be, of success, cheerfully do I gird myself to my
task.

"I have powers; my countrymen think well of them. Do you think I sow
my seed in the barren air, & have no end in what I do? Believe me, I
will never desert life untill this last hope is torn from my bosom,
that in some way my labours may form a link in the chain of gold with
which we ought all to strive to drag Happiness from where she sits
enthroned above the clouds, now far beyond our reach, to inhabit the
earth with us. Let us suppose that Socrates, or Shakespear, or
Rousseau had been seized with despair and died in youth when they were
as young as I am; do you think that we and all the world should not
have lost incalculable improvement in our good feelings and our
happiness thro' their destruction. I am not like one of these; they
influenced millions: but if I can influence but a hundred, but ten,
but one solitary individual, so as in any way to lead him from ill to
good, that will be a joy to repay me for all my sufferings, though
they were a million times multiplied; and that hope will support me to
bear them[.]

"And those who do not work for posterity; or working, as may be my
case, will not be known by it; yet they, believe me, have also their
duties. You grieve because you are unhappy[;] it is happiness you seek
but you despair of obtaining it. But if you can bestow happiness on
another; if you can give one other person only one hour of joy ought
you not to live to do it? And every one has it in their power to do
that. The inhabitants of this world suffer so much pain. In crowded
cities, among cultivated plains, or on the de