When A Friend Is Carried To His

All Argument Is Against It; But All Belief Is For It.

He That Outlives A Wife Whom He Has Long Loved, Sees Himself Disjoined From The Only Mind That Has The Same Hopes, And Fears, And Interest; From The Only Companion With Whom He Has Shared Much Good And Evil; And With Whom He Could Set His Mind At Liberty, To Retrace The Past Or Anticipate The Future. The Continuity Of Being Is Lacerated; The Settled Course Of Sentiment And Action Is Stopped; And Life Stands Suspended And Motionless.

[the Poet] Must Write As The Interpreter Of Nature And The Legislator Of Mankind, And Consider Himself As Presiding Over The Thoughts And Manners Of Future Generations, As A Being Superior To Time And Place.

Many Of Our Miseries Are Merely Comparative: We Are Often Made Unhappy, Not By The Presence Of Any Real Evil, But By The Absence Of Some Fictitious Good; Of Something Which Is Not Required By Any Real Want Of Nature, Which Has Not In Itself Any Power Of Gratification, And Which Neither Reason Nor Fancy Would Have Prompted Us To Wish, Did We Not See It In The Possession Of Others.

So Willing Is Every Man To Flatter Himself, That The Difference Between Approving Laws, And Obeying Them, Is Frequently Forgotten; He That Acknowledges The Obligations Of Morality And Pleases His Vanity With Enforcing Them To Others, Concludes Himself Zealous In The Cause Of Virtue.