Pie] AND SYMBOLS. 273 



by burrowing after fortune year after year you will eventually 

 discover happiness. Nothing of the kind. The deeper you 

 sink in your mercenary pursuit, the less will be your reward so 

 far as real pleasure goes. The purest joys are not hidden away 

 from light. Si. 



Pleasure is Seldom Unalloyed. 



We look with great expectancy for the arrival of some 

 pleasure which we imagine will afford us the most complete 

 satisfaction, and no sooner does it arrive than we find in its 

 train a whole host of petty annoyances and unwelcome accom- 

 paniments. It is not only so in social life, but also in the 

 material world. Mr. Matthew Lewis, M.P., in his interesting 

 " Journal " of a residence among the negroes in the West Indies, 

 relates how eagerly in Jamaica, after three months of drought, 

 the inhabitants long for rain; and when the blessing at last 

 descends, it is accompanied by terrific thunder and lightning, 

 and has the effect of bringing out all sorts of insects and reptiles 

 in crowds ; the ground being covered \vith lizards, the air filled 

 with mosquitoes : the rooms of the houses with centipedes and 

 legions of mosquitoes. And it will, on inquiry, be found that 

 the enjoyment of nearly every anticipated pleasure is in like 

 manner more or less alloyed by reason of the unpleasant things 

 which seem inevitably to attend it. jo. 



Varieties and Contrarieties in the Idea of Pleasure. 



Every creature is made for happiness, and receives happiness 

 according to its capacity ; and it is very wrong to suppose that 

 because we should be miserable if we led the life of a vulture 

 or sloth, or a bat, therefore these creatures are miserable. In 

 truth, the vulture is attracted to and feels its greatest gratifica- 

 tion in those substances which would drive us away with averted 

 eyes and stopped nostrils. The sloth is, on the authority of 

 Waterton, quite a jovial beast, and anything but slothful when 

 in its proper place ; and as for the bat, it sings for very joy. 

 True, the song is not very melodious, neither is that of the swift 

 or the peacock, nor perhaps that of the cochin-china fowl, but it 

 is nevertheless a song from the abundance of the heart. o. 



s 



