The fabled pains of Tantalus, Sisyphus and all the rest of them show what
an instinctive longing there is in all men both for end and endlessness
of both good and ill, but as torture they are the merest mockery when
compared with the fruitless chase to which poor Death has been condemned
for ever and ever. Does it not seem as though he too must have committed
some crime for which his sentence is to be for ever grasping after that
which becomes non-existent the moment he grasps it? But then I suppose
it would be with him as with the rest of the tortured, he must either die
himself, which he has not done, or become used to it and enjoy the
frightening as much as the killing. Any pain through which a man can
live at all becomes unfelt as soon as it becomes habitual. Pain consists
not in that which is now endured but in the strong memory of something
better that is still recent. And so, happiness lies in the memory of a
recent worse and the expectation of a better that is to come soon.