It is certain that to enjoy Life and Health as a constant Feast, we should not think Pleasure necessary, but, if possible, to arrive at an Equality of Mind.  It is as mean to be overjoyed upon Occasions of Good-Fortune, as to be dejected in Circumstances of Distress.  Laughter in one Condition is as unmanly as Weeping in the other.  We should not form our Minds to expect Transport on every Occasion, but know how to make it Enjoyment to be out of Pain.  Ambition, Envy, vagrant Desire, or impertinent Mirth will take up our Minds, without we can possess our selves in that Sobriety of Heart which is above all Pleasures, and can be felt much better than described.  But the ready Way, I believe, to the right Enjoyment of Life, is by a Prospect towards another to have but a very mean Opinion of it.  A great Author of our Time has set this in an excellent Light, when with a Philosophick Pity of Human Life, he spoke of it in his Theory of the Earth, [2] in the following manner.

For what is this Life but a Circulation of little mean Actions?  We lie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, work or play, and are weary, and then we lie down again, and the Circle returns.  We spend the Day in Trifles, and when the Night comes we throw our selves into the Bed of Folly, amongst Dreams and broken Thoughts, and wild Imaginations.  Our Reason lies asleep by us, and we are for the Time as arrant Brutes as those that sleep in the Stalls or in the Field.  Are not the Capacities of Man higher than these?  And ought not his Ambition and Expectations to be greater?  Let us be Adventurers for another World:  ’Tis at least a fair and noble Chance; and there is nothing in this worth our Thoughts or our Passions.  If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our Fellow-Mortals; and if we succeed in our Expectations, we are Eternally Happy.

[Footnote 1:  sit]

[Footnote 2:  Ed. Amsterdam, 1699, p. 241.]

* * * * *

No. 144.  Wednesday, August 15, 1711.  Steele.

      ’...  Noris quam elegans formarum
      Spectator siem.’

      Ter.

Beauty has been the Delight and Torment of the World ever since it began.  The Philosophers have felt its Influence so sensibly, that almost every one of them has left us some Saying or other, which has intimated that he too well knew the Power of it.  One [1] has told us, that a graceful Person is a more powerful Recommendation than the best Letter that can be writ in your Favour.  Another [2] desires the Possessor of it to consider it as a meer Gift of Nature, and not any Perfection of his own.  A Third [3] calls it a short liv’d Tyranny; a Fourth, [4] a silent Fraud, because it imposes upon us without the Help of Language; but I think Carneades spoke as much like a Philosopher as any of them, tho’ more like a Lover, when he call’d it Royalty