We are all, fortunately, greatly disposed to contentment with our lot.
We do not seem to realize it, but the importance of the pleasures of
life which cannot be bartered in, has its noticeable effect on the mind.
Horace remarked this ages ago, and Dr. Johnson has thus translated the
thoughts hinging upon it: "Howsoever every man may complain
occasionally," says he, "of the hardships of his condition, he is
seldom willing to change it for any other on the same level. Whether it
be that he who follows an employment, chose it at first on account of
its suitableness to his inclination; or that when accident, or the
determination of others, have pleased him in a particular station, he,
by endeavoring to reconcile himself to it, gets the custom of viewing it
only on the fairest side; or whether every man thinks that class to
which he belongs the most illustrious, merely