_Vice._ Tell me then, cruel friend, what is your present object? why bury yourself in this abode of regret and sorrow, of repentance and despair? what reason, nay, what right have you to deprive society of talents, bestowed on you by Nature to employ for the benefit of mankind? and what excuse can you make for resigning into the hands of strangers that wealth which it is your sacred duty to distribute with your own? heaven has endowed you with talents capable of making your own existence useful; and your ungrateful neglect renders the gift of no avail: heaven has bestowed on you wealth, capable of making the existence of others happy; and your selfish indolence declines an office which the saints covet, and for which even the angels contend! _Venoni._ Friend! Benvolio! in pity! _Vice._ You are neither weak nor credulous: vulgar prejudices, superstitious terrors, enthusiastic dreams have never subjugated a mind whose innate purity can have left you nothing to fear, and whose genuine piety must have made you feel, that every thing is yours to hope. Why then do I find you in this seclusion? what good is to arise from this servile renunciation of yourself, this forgetfulness of the dignity of human nature, this disgraceful sinking under afflictions which are the common lot of all mankind? tis but too frequently the fate of man to encounter calamity; but to bear it with resignation is always his duty. Now speak, Venoni, and say, what arguments can defend your present conduct. _Venoni._ (_weakly and despondingly_) Benvolio-- I am wretched! I have lost every thing; my strength of mind is broken; my heart is the prey of despair. _Vice._ Of despair? oh, blush to own it! true, you have met with sorrows; and who then is exempt from them? true, your hopes have been deceived; accident has dissolved your dream of happiness; death has deprived you of the mistress of your choice: but you are a man and a citizen; you have a country which requires your services, and yet, oh shame! you resign yourself to despair, Venoni, where is your fortitude? _Venoni._ Fortitude? oh! I have none-- none but to sue for death at the hand of heaven: had I possessed less fortitude, my own hand would have given me what I sue for long since! _Vice._ And say, that death be the only blessing left yourself to wish for; is it then only for yourself, that you wish for blessing? say, that your heart be dead to pleasure, ought it not still to live for virtue? your prospects of happiness may indeed be closed, but the field of your duties remains still open. Mark me, Venoni; life may become to man but one long scene of misery; yet surely the spirit of benevolence should never perish but with life.