Disappointment--pho! What is disappointment, I should like to know?
Why should any body feel it? I don’t. I did so at one time, however,
certainly, and have a vague recollection of it being a rather unpleasant
sort of feeling; but I am a total stranger to it now, and have been so
for the last twenty years.
“Lucky fellow!” say you; “then you succeed in every thing?”
Quite the reverse, my dear sir; I succeed in nothing. I have not the
faintest recollection of having ever succeeded in any single thing, where
success was of the least moment, in the whole course of my life. I have
invariably failed in every thing I have tried. But what has been the
consequence? Why, the consequence has been, that I now never _expect_
success in any thing I aim at; and this again has produced one of the
most delightful states of feeling that can well be conceived. In fact,
the reader can not conceive how delicious is the repose, the placidity of
mind, the equanimity of temper, the coolness, the calmness, the comfort,
arising from this independence of results--this delightful quiescence
of the aspirations. It is a perfect paradise, an elysium. You recline
on it so softly, so easily. It is like a down pillow; a bed of roses;
an English blanket. I recollect the time when I used to fret and fume
when I attempted any thing. How I used to be worried and tortured with
hopes and fears, when I commenced any new undertaking, or applied for
any situation! What folly! what absurdity!--all proceeding from the
ridiculous notion that I had some chance of success!
Grown wiser, I save myself a world of trouble now. I know that I need not
look for success in any thing I attempt, and therefore never expect it.
It would do you good, gentle reader, to see with what calmness, with what
philosophy, I now wait the result of any effort to better myself in life.
It is truly edifying to behold.
Notwithstanding, however, this certain foreknowledge of consequences as
regards the point in question, I deem it my bounden duty, both to myself
and family, to make every effort I can for their and my own advancement;
to try for every situation to which I think myself competent, and,
therefore, I do so; but it is merely in compliance with this moral
obligation, and from no hope whatever of succeeding; and the result
has invariably shown, that to have given myself any uneasiness on the
subject, to have entertained the most remote idea of success, would have
been one of the most ridiculous things conceivable.
What a triumph is mine in such cases! I suffer nothing--no distress of
mind, no uneasiness, not the least of either: I am calm and cool, and
quite prepared for the result, and sure as fate it comes--“Dear Sir, I am
sorry to say,” &c., &c. I never read a word beyond this.
Perhaps it would amuse the reader to give him one of those instances--I
could give him five hundred--of what the generality of people call
disappointments, which has induced the happy state of mind I now enjoy,
which enables me to contemplate such crises as would throw any other
person into the utmost agitation, with the most perfect equanimity.
About four or five years ago, a very intimate and dear friend suddenly
burst in upon me while at breakfast one morning. He was almost
breathless, and his look was big with intelligence.
“Well, Bob,” said he, with a gleeful smile, “here’s something at last
that will do you good.”