The Oak Shade, or, Records of a Village Literary Association by Maurice Eugene - HTML preview

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EXPLANATORY.

“Good men live twice: it doubleth every hour
 To look with joy on that which passed before.”

The author of the following paper, having himself witnessed and heard what he has attempted to detail, merely designed to attract attention to a rich resource of pleasure inherent in every good man. To him who has carefully kept himself free from dishonor, and whose life has never been marred by the stains of vice, there is nothing so happily adapted to beguile the hours of solitude as reflections upon the past. Seneca calls the “unmoved tranquility of a happy mind, a great reward.” He who has so lived as to obtain it, whatever his present condition, may always find in his own thoughts the purest enjoyment, perhaps realizing in this healthful exercise of the resources within him, that there is much more of reality than fancy in what Iamblicus has said: “We must take this as a certain truth, that nothing properly evil shall happen to a good man, either in this life, or after it.”

M. S——G.