d water.

Thus, the man who thinks, being pure of heart, will find consolation when
under the most dreadful calamities, convinced, as he must be, that those
apparently most are frequently least happy, insensible as they are of the
pleasures they might enjoy. Evil is never so great as it appears.

"Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

_As you Like it_.

Happy he who, like me, having suffered, can become an example to his
suffering brethren!

YOUTH, prosperous, and imagining eternal prosperity, read my history
attentively, though I should be in my grave! Read feelingly, and bless
my sleeping dust, if it has taught thee wisdom or fortitude!

FATHER, reading this, say to thy children, I felt thus like them, in
blooming youth, little prophesied of misfortune, which after fell so
heavy on me, and by which I am even still persecuted! Say that I had
virtue, ambition, was educated in noble principles; that I laboured with
all the zeal of enthusiastic youth to become wiser, better, greater than
other men; that I was guilty of no crimes, was the friend of men, was no
deceiver of man or woman; that I first served my own country faithfully,
and after, every other in which I found bread; that I was never, during
life, once intoxicated; was no gamester, no night rambler, no
contemptible idler; that yet, through envy and arbitrary power, I have
fallen to misery such as none but the worst of criminals ought to feel.

BROTHER, fly those countries where the lawgiver himself knows no law,
where truth and virtue are punished as crimes; and, if fly you cannot, be
it your endeavour to remain unknown, unnoticed; in such countries, seek
not favour or honourable employ, else will you become, when your merits
are known, as I have been, the victim of slander and treachery: the
behests of power will persecute you, and innocence will not shield you
from the shafts of wicked men who are envious, or who wish to obtain the
favour of princes, though by the worst of means.

SIRE, imagine not that thou readest a romance. My head is grey, like
thine. Read, yet despise not the world, though it has treated me thus
unthankfully. Good men have I also found, who have befriended me in
misfortunes, and there, where I had least claim, have I found them most.
May my book assist thee in noble thoughts; mayest thou die as tranquilly
as I shall render up my soul t