If certain women walk straight into adultery, there are many others who cling to numerous hopes, and commit sin only after wandering through a maze of sorrows.
Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business,
Hath raised me from my bed; nor doth the general care
Take hold on me; for my particular grief
Is of so floodgate and o'erbearing nature
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
And it is still itself.
It is very difficult to pass from pleasure to work. Accordingly more poems have been swallowed up by sorrow than ever happiness caused to blaze forth in unparalleled radiance.
Genuine sorrows are very tranquil in appearance in the deep bed they have dug for themselves. But, seeming to slumber, they corrode the soul like that frightful acid which penetrates crystal.
To-day is ours; what do we fear?
To-day is ours; we have it here.
Let's treat it kindly, that it may
Wish, at least, with us to stay.
Let's banish business, banish sorrow;
To the gods belong to-morrow.
Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has a good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will pa tronize in vain,--which taste cannot tolerate,--which ridicule will seize.