There is never, observes Madame d’Arblay, in her diary, such a superfluity of actual happiness as to make it either rational or justifiable to feed upon _expected_ misery. “That portion of philosophy which belongs to making the most of the present day, grows upon me strongly; and, as I have suffered infinitely from its neglect, it is what I most encourage, and, indeed, require.” Kindly ordained, she takes it, is the concealment of “the day of sorrow; And enough is the present tense of toil— For this world, to all, is a stiffish soil— And the mind flies back with a glad recoil From the debts not due till to-morrow.” It is one of Scott’s young heroes who opens a letter of troublous tidings with the confession that, until now, he had rarely known what it was to sustain a moment’s real sorrow; what he called such was, he now felt assured, only the weariness of mind which, having nothing actually present to complain of, turns upon itself, and becomes anxious about the future—disregarding the Scriptural monition that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Is there, Armstrong asks, “an evil worse than fear itself? And what avails it that indulgent Heaven From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come, If we, ingenious to torment ourselves, Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own? Enjoy the present; nor, with needless cares Of what may spring from blind misfortune’s womb, Appal the surest hours that life bestows: Serene, and master of yourself, prepare For what may come; and leave the rest to Heaven.” Prevision and imagination, as Rousseau says, multiply the evils of our lot: “_Pour moi_,” he professes—however the profession may have squared with the practice—“_j’ai beau savoir que je soufrirai demain, il me suffit de ne pas souffrir aujourd’hui pour être tranquille_.” It is certainly a frenzy, quoth old Montaigne, to go now and whip yourself, because it may so fall out that fortune may one day decree you a whipping, and to put on your furred gown at Midsummer, because you will stand in need of it at Christmas. It was one of Madame de Sévigné’s maxims in life to “regarder l’avenir comme une obscurité, dont il peut arriver des biens et des clartés à quoi l’on ne s’attend pas.” Milton’s Adam laments the mournful privilege of “visions ill foreseen.” Better had he lived ignorant of future! so had borne his part of evil only, each day’s lot enough to bear. So again, in Milton’s Masque, the elder brother bids the younger be not over-exquisite to cast the fashion of uncertain evils: “For grant they be so, while they rest unknown, What need a man forestall his date of grief, And run to meet what he would most avoid?” And once more, Milton himself, in one of those Sonnets which stand in the like relation of merit to his great epic that Shakspeare’s do to his great dramas, admonishes his scholar, Cyriack Skinner, that heaven disproves the care,