We hope to have the pleasure of delighting our readers frequently with
the chaste and classic pen of our correspondent M. By a curious
coincidence, about the time he was translating the subjoined story from
Voltaire, a correspondent of the Richmond Compiler furnished the Editor
of that paper with another version, which was published. Without
disparagement to the latter however, the reader of taste will find no
difficulty in awarding the preference to the one which we insert in our
columns.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
Below, is a neat and sportive little story of Voltaire's, never before
translated into English, that I know of; though containing sufficient
point and good sense to make it well worthy of that honor. No one who
has ever sorrowed, can fail to acknowledge the justice of styling TIME
the "Great Consoler." The balm he brings, has never failed sooner or
later to heal any grief, which did not absolutely _derange_ the mind of
its victim. By one part of the tale, the reader will be reminded of the
philosopher in Rasselas, who, the morning after he had eloquently and
conclusively demonstrated the folly of grieving for any of the ills of
life, was found weeping inconsolably, for the loss of his only
daughter. Whether Dr. Johnson, or the French wit, first touched off
this trait of human weakness, is not material: it may be set down as
rather a coincidence than a plagiarism. So much of the region of
thought is _common ground_, over which every active mind continually
gambols, that it would be wonderful if different feet did not sometimes
tread in identical foot prints.