_Worthy_ to _Harrington_.
_Boston._
YOU argue as if your reason were perverted—Let your mind be
employed, and time will wear out these gloomy ideas; for it is certainly
a truth, the _love of life increases with age_—Your letters, therefore,
are predicated on the most erroneous principles.
REMEMBER the story of the old man, who had been buried in a dungeon the
greater part of his life, and who was liberated at an advanced age. He
viewed, once more, the light of the sun, and the habitations of men—he
had come into a new order of beings, but found their manners
distasteful—In the midst of the sunshine of the world he remembered the
prison, where he had wasted his life, and he sighed to be again immured
within its walls.
SUCH is our passion for life; we love it because we know it; and our
attachment becomes the more riveted, the longer we are acquainted with
it—Our prison grows familiar—we contemplate its horrours—but however
gloomy the walls that surround us, there is not one but sets a full
value on his dreary existence—there is not one but finds his partiality
for his dungeon increase, in proportion to the time he hath occupied
it—for among the race of human beings confined to this narrow spot—how
few are they who are hardy enough to break their prison?
LET us watch over all we do with an eye of scrutiny—the world will not
examine the causes that gave birth to our actions—they do not weigh the
motives of them—they do not consider those things which influence our
conduct—but as that conduct is more or less advantageous to society,
they deem it madness or wisdom, or folly or prudence—Remember this—
Adieu!