To this I replied, “The sequence of fulness and decay lies beyond the limits of our ken. Years ago, when this site was exposed to the hoar-frost and dew of heaven, the home of the adder and of the fox, who could then have forecast the Tower of to-day? And when, obedient to the eternal law, it shall once again by lapse of time become a wilderness and a desert as before,―this is what no man can declare.”
“Where now,” said I to the Governor, as we mounted the Tower together and gazed over the landscape around us, “where now are the palaces of old, beautiful, spacious buildings, a hundred times more solid than this? They are gone; and not a broken tile, not a crumbling wall remains, to mark the spot. They have passed into the growing grain, into the thorny brake. They have melted into the loamy glebe. Shall not then this Tower in like manner pass away? And if towers cannot last for ever, how much less shall we rely for immortality upon the ever fickle breath of praise? Alas for those who trust by these means to live in the record of their age! For whether the record of their age will endure or perish depends upon something beyond the preservation and decay of towers.”[1]
I then retired and committed the above to writing.
THE TOWER OF CONTENTMENT.
All things are in some sense worth seeing, and are consequently sources of pleasure: it is not necessary that they should possess either rarity or beauty. Eating grains and swilling lees will make a man drunk: berries and herbs will fill his belly; and it is by parity of reasoning that I am able to enjoy myself wherever I go.
Now those who seek happiness and avoid misery, rejoice or grieve according as they are successful or otherwise. But man’s desires are endless, while his means of gratifying them are limited:
- ↑ A sneer at the Governor for trying to commemorate his prosperous term of office by the erection of a perishable tower.
