And virtue, though in rags will keep me warm."

So sings Dryden, paraphrasing Horace, but each of them with their
knowledge of the world, cross-questioned in prose, could have told
us how the stings of fortune really are felt. The truth is, that
fortune is not exactly a distinct isolated thing which can be taken
away--"and there an end." But much has to be severed, with
undoubted pain in the operation. A man mostly feels that his
reputation for sagacity, often his honour, the comfort, too, or
supposed comfort, of others are embarked in his fortunes. Mere
stoicism, and resolves about fitting fortune to oneself, not oneself
to fortune, though good things enough in their way, will not always
meet the whole of the case. And a man who could bear personal
distress of any kind with Spartan indifference, may suffer himself
to be overwhelmed by despair growing out of worldly trouble. A
frequent origin of such despair, as indeed of all despair (not by
any means excluding despair from remorse), is pride. Let a man say
to himself, "I am not the perfect character I meant to be; this is
not the conduct I had imagined for myself; these are not the
fortunate circumstances I had always intended to be surrounded by."
Let him at once admit that he is on a lower level than his ideal
one; and then see what is to be done there. This seems the best way
of treating all that part of worldly trouble which consists of self-
reproval. We scarcely know of any outward life continuously
prosperous (and a very dull one it would be): why should we expect
the inner life to be one course of unbroken self-improvement, either
in prudence, or in virtue?

Before a man gives way to excessive grief about the fortunes of his
family being lost with his own, he should think whether he really