which is scattered abroad by misery or by vice; for thou art not an
exception, thou art an instance; and under the same sun which shines so
pleasantly upon all, in the midst of these flowering vineyards, this ripe
corn, and these wealthy cities, entire generations suffer, succeed each
other, and still bequeath to each the beggar's stick!

The sight of this sad picture shall make me more grateful for what God
has given me, and more compassionate for those whom he has treated with
less indulgence; it shall be a lesson and a subject for reflection for
me.

Ah! if we would watch for everything that might improve and instruct us;
if the arrangements of our daily life were so disposed as to be a
constant school for our minds! but oftenest we take no heed of them.
Man is an eternal mystery to himself; his own person is a house into
which he never enters, and of which he studies the outside alone. Each
of us need have continually before him the famous inscription which once
instructed Socrates, and which was engraved on the walls of Delphi by an
unknown hand:

KNOW THYSELF.




CHAPTER XII

THE END OF THE YEAR

December 30th, P.M.