In this fortunate country, however, we may have many
wants, and yet, if they are only reasonable, we may gratify them all.
Nature indeed provides without stint the main requisites of human
happiness. "To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms set; to draw hard
breath over plough-share or spade; to read, to think, to love, to pray,"
these, says Ruskin, "are the things that make men happy."
"I have fallen into the hands of thieves," says Jeremy Taylor; "what then?
They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife and many
friends to pity me, and some to relieve me, and I can still discourse;
and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance and my
cheerful spirit and a good conscience.... And he that hath so many causes
of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness who
loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down on his little handful
of thorns."
"When a man has such things to think on, and sees the sun, the moon, and
stars, and enjoys earth and sea, he is not solitary or even helpless.
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