-The objects that we have known
in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our
affections, and give us strength to await our future lot. The future is
like a dead wall or a thick mist hiding all objects from our view;
the past is alive and stirring with objects, bright or solemn, and of
unfading interest. What is it in fact that we recur to oftenest? What
subjects do we think or talk of? Not the ignorant future, but the
well-stored past. Othello, the Moor of Venice, amused himself and his
hearers at the house of Signor Brabantio by 'running through the story
of his life even from his boyish days'; and oft 'beguiled them of their
tears, when he did speak of some disastrous stroke which his youth
suffered.' This plan of ingratiating himself would not have answered if
the past had been, like the contents of an old almanac, of no use but
to be thrown aside and forgotten. What a blank, for instance, does the
history of the world for the next six thousand years present to the
mind, compared with that of the last! All that strikes the imagination
or excites any interest in the mighty scene is _what has been_!(2)

***

Neither in itself, then, nor as a subject of general contemplation, has
the future any advantage over the past. But with respect to our grosser
passions and pursuits it has. As far as regards the appeal to the
understanding or the imagination, the past is just as good, as real,
of as much intrinsic and ostensible value as the future; but there is
another principle in the human mind, the principle of action or will;
and of this the past has no hold, the future engrosses it entirely to
itself. It is this strong lever of the affections that gives so powerful
a bias to our sentiments on this subject, and violently transposes the
natural order of our associations. We regret the pleasures we have
lost, and eagerly anticipate those which are to come: we dwell with
satisfaction on the evils from which we have escaped (_Posthaec
meminisse iuvabit_)--and dread future pain. The good that is past is
in this sense like money that is spent, which is of no further use, and
about which we give ourselves little concern. The good we expect is
like a store yet untouched, and in the enjoyment of which we promise
ourselves infinite gratification. What has happened to us we think of
no consequence: what is to happen to us, of the greatest. Why so? Simply
because the one is still in our power, and the other not--beca