There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.
Every individual, from the highest to the lowest degree, has his place in the ladder of social life, and around him swirls a little world of interests, composed of stormy passions and conflicting atoms.
Are there not some places where we seem to breathe sadness? – why, we cannot tell. It is a chain of recollections – an idea which carries you back to other times, to other places – which, very likely, have no connection with the present time and place.
