There are certain interests which the world supposes every man to
have, and which therefore are properly enough termed worldly; but
the world is apt to make an erroneous estimate: ignorant of the
dispositions which constitute our happiness or misery, they bring to
an undistinguished scale the means of the one, as connected with
power, wealth, or grandeur, and of the other with their contraries.
Philosophers and poets have often protested against this decision;
but their arguments have been despised as declamatory, or ridiculed
as romantic.

There are never wanting to a young man some grave and prudent
friends to set him right in this particular, if he need it; to watch
his ideas as they arise, and point them to those objects which a
wise man should never forget.

Harley did not want for some monitors of this sort. He was
frequently told of men whose fortunes enabled them to command all
the luxuries of life, whose fortunes were of their own acquirement:
his envy was invited by a description of their happiness, and his
emulation by a recital of the means which had procured it.

Harley was apt to hear those lectures with indifference; nay,
sometimes they got the better of his temper; and as the instances
were not always amiable, provoked, on his part, some reflections,
which I am persuaded his good-nature would else have avoided.

Indeed, I have observed one ingredient, somewhat necessary in a
man's composition towards happiness, which people of feeling would