d bed) when that sad heart is no
longer sad, and that sorrow is dead which thou wert only called into the
world to feel!

It is certain that there is nothing in the idea of a pre-existent state
that excites our longing like the prospect of a posthumous existence.
We are satisfied to have begun life when we did; we have no ambition
to have set out on our journey sooner; and feel that we have had quite
enough to do to battle our way through since. We cannot say,

The wars we well remember of King Nine,
Of old Assaracus and Inachus divine.

Neither have we any wish: we are contented to read of them in story, and
to stand and gaze at the vast sea of time that separates us from them.
It was early days then: the world was not _well-aired_ enough for us: we
have no inclination to have been up and stirring. We do not consider the
six thousand years of the world before we were born as so much time lost
to us: we are perfectly indifferent about the matter. We do not grieve
and lament that we did not happen to be in time to see the grand mask
and pageant of human life going on in all that period; though we are
mortified at being obliged to quit our stand before the rest of the
procession passes.

It may be suggested in explanation of this difference, that we know from
various records and traditions what happened in the time of Queen Anne,
or even in the reigns of the Assyrian monarchs, but that we have no
means of ascertaining what is to happen hereafter but by awaiting the
event, and that our eagerness and curiosity are sharpened in proportion
as we are in the dark about it. This is not at all the case; for at that
rate we should be constantly wishing to make a voyage of discovery to
Greenland or to the Moon, neither of which we have, in general, the
least desire to do. Neither, in truth, have we any particular solicitude
to pry into the secrets of futurity, but as a pretext for prolonging our
own existence. It is not so much that we care to be alive a hundred or
a thousand years hence, any more than to have been alive a hundred or
a thousand years ago: but the thing lies here, that we would all of us
wish the present moment to last for ever. We would be as we are, and
would have the world remain just as it is, to please us.

The present eye catches the present object--

to have and to hold while it may; and abhors, on any terms, to have it
torn from us, and nothing left in its room. It is the pang of parting,
the unloo