_P._--Can't you recall some year that seemed happy to you? _V._--Upon my word, no, sir. _P._--Yet life is a good thing, isn't it? _V._--Oh, yes indeed! _P_.--You would be willing to live these twenty years all over again, and even all the years since you were born? _F._--I should say so, my dear sir. And would to God that were possible! _P._--Even if this life were to be exactly the same that you lived before,--no more no less,--with the same pleasures and the same sorrows? _F._--Oh, that! Indeed no! _P._--Then what sort of life would you wish? _F._--Just a life, that's all,--such as God would grant me, without any other conditions. _P._--A life left to accident, of which nothing would be known in advance,--a life such as the coming year brings? _F._--Exactly. _P._--That's what I, too, would desire, if I had my life to live over again,--what I and everybody else would wish for. But that means that fate, up to this very day, has treated us badly. And it is rather easy to see that the common opinion is, that in the past evil has triumphed greatly over good, since nobody, if he had to go over the same road again, would consent to be reborn. That life which is good is not the life we know, but the life we do not know,--the life ahead of us. Beginning with the new year, fate is going to deal kindly with us,--with you and me and everybody,--and we are going to be happy. _V._--Let us hope so. _P._--Well, let me see your handsomest almanac. _V._--Here you are, sir. It costs thirty cents. _P._--Here's your money. _V._--Thanks, sir. See you again. Almanacs! New almanacs! New calendars! There is, perhaps, a slight error in Leopardi's reasoning. It is not because our life has been bad that it would be a burden to begin it all over again. Even a happy life lived twice would scarcely possess any greater pleasures. The element of curiosity must be taken into account. There is no human being, however resigned to the monotony of a becalmed existence, who does not in the bottom of his heart hope for some unforeseen event. But is it really true that this idea is not contained in Leopardi's dialogue? It is there, although hidden, and doubtless I have taken it from there. Wherever it may come from, it is true, at least if it be applied to life as a whole. For everybody cherishes the remembrance of hours, and sometimes days, which he would gladly live over again. It is often one of the occupations of men to seek to create in their lives circumstances that plunge them for a moment back into the joys of the past, even if they must pay for this momentary resurrection with subsequent pain....