our
ills, I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have found that there is
one very real reason, namely, the natural poverty of our feeble and mortal
condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we think of it
closely.

Whatever condition we picture to ourselves, if we muster all the good things
which it is possible to possess, royalty is the finest position in the
world. Yet, when we imagine a king attended with every pleasure he can feel,
if he be without diversion and be left to consider and reflect on what he
is, this feeble happiness will not sustain him; he will necessarily fall
into forebodings of dangers, of revolutions which may happen, and, finally,
of death and inevitable disease; so that, if he be without what is called
diversion, he is unhappy and more unhappy than the least of his subjects who
plays and diverts himself.

Hence it comes that play and the society of women, war and high posts, are
so sought after. Not that there is in fact any happiness in them, or that
men imagine true bliss to consist in money won at play, or in the hare which
they hunt; we would not take these as a gift. We do not seek that easy and
peaceful lot which permits us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the
dangers of war, nor the labour of office, but the bustle which averts these
thoughts of ours and amuses us.

Reasons why we like the chase better than the quarry.

Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it co