revealed to you that everything which happens is the result of
necessity, and therefore inevitable.

However good this advice may be, it is one-sided and partial. In
relieving and quieting us for the moment, it is no doubt effective
enough; but when our misfortunes have resulted--as is usually the
case--from our own carelessness or folly, or, at any rate, partly by
our own fault, it is a good thing to consider how they might have
been avoided, and to consider it often in spite of its being a tender
subject--a salutary form of self-discipline, which will make us wiser
and better men for the future. If we have made obvious mistakes, we
should not try, as we generally do, to gloss them over, or to find
something to excuse or extenuate them; we should admit to ourselves
that we have committed faults, and open our eyes wide to all their
enormity, in order that we may firmly resolve to avoid them in time to
come. To be sure, that means a great deal of self-inflicted pain, in
the shape of discontent, but it should be remembered that to spare
the rod is to spoil the child--[Greek: ho mae dareis anthropos ou
paideuetai].[1]

[Footnote 1: Menander. Monost: 422.]

SECTION 13. In all matters affecting our weal or woe, we should be
careful not to let our imagination run away with us, and build no
castles in the air. In the first place, they are expensive to build,
because we have to pull them down again immediately, and that is
a source of grief. We should be still more on our guard against
distressing our hearts by depicting possible misfortunes. If these
were misfortunes of a purely imaginary kind, or very remote and
unlikely, we should at once see, on awaking from our dream, that the