That if a thing is, it is, and there is an end of it!
We often make life unhappy in wishing things to have turned out otherwise than they did, merely because that is possible to the imagination, which is impossible in fact. I remember when Lamb— — —’s farce was damned (for damned it was, that’s certain), I used to dream every night for a month after (and then I vowed I would plague myself no more about it) that it was revived at one of the Minor or provincial theatres with great success, that such and such retrenchments and alterations had been made in it, and that it was thought it might do at the other House. I had heard indeed (this was told in confidence to Lamb— — —) that Gentleman Lewis was present on the night of its performance, and said, that if he had had it, he would have made it, by a few judicious curtailments, “the most popular little thing that had been brought out for some time.” How often did I conjure up in recollection the full diapason of applause at the end of the Prologue, and hear my ingenious friend in the first row of the pit roar with laughter at his own wit! Then I dwelt with forced complacency on some part in which it had been doing well: then we would consider (in concert)
