Henry Fielding

“ When the grave, beyond which we can enter into no engagement with one another, hath dissolved all bonds of friendship between us, and removed the object of our affection far from the reach of any of our offices; can any thing be more vain and ridiculous, than to nourish an affliction to our own misery, by which we can convey neither profit nor pleasure to our friend? ”

“ Wisdom is our shield against all calamity, and this we are not cowardly to throw away, though some of the sharper darts of fortune may have pierced us through it. The mind of a wise man may be ruffled and disordered, but cannon be subdued ”

“ In this the happiest and most miserable, the greatest and lowest, richest and poorest of mankind share all alike.
It is not then, it cannot be, death itself (which is a part of life) that we lament should happen to our friend, but it is the time of his dying. We desire not a pardon, we desire a reprieve only. ”

“ That pleasure is heightened by long expectation, appears to me a great though vulgar error. The mind, by constant premeditation on either, lessens the sweetness of the one, and bitterness of the other. It hath been well said of lovers, who for a long time procrastinate and delay their happiness, that they have loved themselves out before they come to the actual enjoyment; this is as true in the more ungrateful article of affliction. The objects of our passions, as well as of our appetites, may be in a great measure devoured by imagination ”

“ But in a mind of a different cast, in one susceptible of a tender affection, fortune can make no other ravage equal to such a loss. It is tearing the heart, the soul from the body; not by a momentary operation, like that by which the most cruel tormentors of the body soon destroy the subject of their cruelty; but by a continued, tedious, though violent agitation; the soul having this double unfortunate superiority to the body, that its agonies, as they are more exquisite, so they are more lasting. ”

“ I am more apt to impute such sudden tranquillity, at so great a loss, to ostentation or obduracy, than to consummate virtue. It is rather wanting the affection than conquering it. To overcome the affliction arising from the loss of our friends, is great and praiseworthy ”

“ And first, by way of preparative; while we yet enjoy our friends, and no immediate danger threatens us of losing them, nothing can be wholesomer than frequent reflections on the certainty of this loss, however distant it may then appear to us; for if it be worth our while to prepare the body for diseases which may possibly (or at most probably) attack us, how much more necessary must it seem to furnish the mind with every alliance to encounter a calamity, which our own death only, or the previous determination of our friendship, can prevent from happening to us. ”

“ It hath been mentioned as one of the first ingredients of a wise man, that nothing befalls him entirely unforeseen, and unexpected. And this is surely the principal means of taking his happiness or misery out of the hands of fortune. Pleasure or pain, which seizes us unprepared, and by surprise, have a double force, and are both more capable of subduing the mind, than when they come upon us looking for them, and prepared to receive them. ”

“ It is then that reason is to be called to our assistance, and we should use every suggestion which it can lend to our relief; our utmost force being to be exerted to repel and subdue an enemy when he begins to retreat: this indeed, one would imagine, should want little or no persuasion to recommend it; inasmuch as we all naturally pursue happiness and avoid misery.
There are, however, two causes of our unwillingness to hearken to the voice of reason on this occasion. The first, a foolish opinion, that friendship requires an exorbitant affliction of us ”

“ I shall not attempt to make an estimate of human life, which to do in the most concise manner, would fill more pages than I can here allow it; nor will it be necessary for me, since admitting there was more real happiness in life than the wisest men have allowed; as the weakest and simplest will be ready to confess that there is much evil in it likewise ”

“ Nor is there any dissuasive from such contemplation: it is no breach of friendship, nor violence of paternal fondness: for the event we dread and detest, is not by these means forwarded, as simple persons think their own death would be by making a will. On the contrary, the sweetest and most rapturous enjoyments are thus promoted and encouraged: for what can be a more delightful thought than to assure ourselves, after such reflections, that the evil we apprehend, and which might so probably have happened, hath been yet fortunately escaped. ”

“ If therefore death be no evil, there is certainly no reason why we should lament its having happened to our friend; but if there be any whom neither his own observation, nor what Plato hath advanced in his apology for Socrates, in his Crito, and his Phaedon; or Cicero, in the first and third books of his Tusculan questions; or Montaigne (if he hath a contempt for the ancients) , can convince, that death is not an evil worthy our lamentation, let such a man comfort himself, that the evil which his friend hath suffered, he shall himself shortly have his share in. ”

“ We are tenants at will to fortune, and as we have advanced no consideration on our side, can have no right to accuse her caprice in determining our estate. However short-lived our possession hath been, it was still more than she promised, or we could demand. We are already obliged to her for more than we can pay; but, like ungrateful persons, with whom one denial effaces the remembrance of an hundred benefits, we forget what we have already received ”

“ Indeed, time is the truest and best physician on these occasions; and our wisest part is to lend him the utmost assistance we can; whereas, by pursuing the methods I have here objected to, we withstand with all our might the aid and comfort which that great reliever of human misery so kindly offers us.
Diversions of the lightest kind have been recommended as a remedy for affliction; but for my part, I rather conceive they will increase than diminish it; especially where music is to make up any part of the entertainment ”

“ Philosophy, in its purer and stricter sense, means no more than the love of wisdom; but in its common and vulgar acceptation it signifies, the search after wisdom; or often, wisdom itself; for to distinguish between wisdom and philosophy (says a great writer) , is rather matter of vain curiosity than of real utility. ”

“ And here I address myself to common men, and who partake of the more amiable weaknesses of human nature; not to those elevated souls whom the consummation of virtue and philosophy hath raised to a divine pitch of excellence, and placed beyond the reach of human calamity ”

“ I am ready to agree with a celebrated French writer, That the lamentation expressed for the loss of our dearest friends is often, in reality, for ourselves; that we are concerned at being less happy, less easy, and of less consequence than we were before; and thus the dead enjoy the honour of those tears which are truly shed on account of the living: concluding, — that in these afflictions men impose on themselves. ”

“ However, though I admit the first emotions of our grief to be so far irresistible, that they are not to be instantly and absolutely overcome, yet we are not, on the other side, totally to abandon ourselves to them. ”

“ If it be true, that the loss of a blessing teaches us its true value, will not these ruminations on the certainty of losing our friends, and the uncertainty of our enjoyment of them, add a relish to the present possession? ”

“ But if we will be hardy enough to fly in the face of these and numberless other such authorities; if we will still maintain that the pleasures of life have in them something truly solid, and worthy our regard and desire, we shall not, however, be bold enough to say, that these pleasures are lasting, certain, or the portion of many among us. ”

“ Nothing can indeed betray a weaker or more childish temper of mind than this conduct; by which, like infants, we reject a remedy, if it be the least distasteful; and are ready to receive any grateful food, without regarding the nourishment which at the same time we contribute to the disease. ”

“ Had not the wise man frequently meditated on these subjects, he would not have coolly answered the person who acquainted him with the death of his son — I KNEW I had begot a Mortal. Whereas, by the behaviour of some on these occasions, we might be almost induced to suspect they were disappointed in their hopes of their friend's immortality; that something uncommon, and beyond the general fate of men, had happened to them. ”

“ Of what duration is this life of man computed? A scrivener, who sells his annuity at fourteen years and a half, rejoices in his cunning, and thinks he hath outwitted you, at least half a year in the bargain. ”

“ If however this calamity be not in a more humane disposition to be presently or totally removed, an attempt to lessen it is, however, worth our attention. He who could reduce the torments of the gout to one-half or a third of the pain, would, I apprehend, be a physician in much vogue and request; and surely, some palliative remedies are as much worth our seeking in the mental disorder ”