Page:The Carcanet.djvu/65



The habit of dissipating every serious thought by a succession of agreeable sensations, is as fatal to happiness as to virtue; for when amusement is uniformly substituted for objects of moral and mental interest, we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above the scale of childish pleasures; each individual learns to consider himself as the sole spectator of the great drama of life; and he sits and beholds, laughs and mocks, enjoys or yawns through a worthless existence; then sinks into the grave despised and forgotten. Anna Mar