"Homo animal querulum cupide suis incumbens miseriis." I wonder where
that comes from. I found it once in Charron, quoted without reference,
and it has often been in my mind--a dreary truth, well worded. At least,
it was a truth for me during many a long year. Life, I fancy, would very
often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self-compassion; in cases
numberless, this it must be that saves from suicide. For some there is
great relief in talking about their miseries, but such gossips lack the
profound solace of misery nursed in silent brooding. Happily, the trick
with me has never been retrospective; indeed, it was never, even with
regard to instant suffering, a habit so deeply rooted as to become a
mastering vice. I knew my own weakness when I yielded to it; I despised
myself when it brought me comfort; I could laugh scornfully, even "cupide
meis incumbens miseriis." And now, thanks be to the unknown power which
rules us, my past has buried its dead. More than that; I can accept with
sober cheerfulness the necessity of all I lived through. So it was to
be; so it was. For this did Nature shape me; with what purpose, I shall
never know; but, in the sequence of things eternal, this was my place.
Could I have achieved so much philosophy if, as I ever feared, the
closing years of my life had passed in helpless indigence? Should I not
have sunk into lowest depths of querulous self-pity, grovelling there
with eyes obstinately averted from the light above?