Certain it is that _work, worry, labor_ and _trouble_, form the lot of
almost all men their whole life long. But if all wishes were fulfilled
as soon as they arose, how would men occupy their lives? what would
they do with their time? If the world were a paradise of luxury and
ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained
his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of
boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and
murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on
itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature.

In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like
children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there
in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a
blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we
foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent
prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all
unconscious of what their sentence means. Nevertheless, every man
desires to reach old age; in other words, a state of life of which it
may be said: "It is bad to-day, and it will be worse to-morrow; and so
on till the worst of all."

If you try to imagine, as nearly as you can, what an amount of misery,
pain and suffering of every kind the sun shines upon in its course,
you will admit that it would be much better if, on the earth as little
as on the moon, the sun were able to call forth the phenomena of life;
and if, here as there, the surface were still in a crystalline state.

Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable episode, disturbing
the blessed calm of non-existence. And, in any case, even though