According to our custom, after the engagements of the day we retired to the drawing-room, to enjoy the pleasures of social intercourse. Mr. Stevens having spent the morning in visiting among scenes of sorrow and distress, our conversation naturally turned on the subject of human happiness and sorrow. After much varied discourse, Mr. Roscoe (who formed one of our party) observed, "There is much misery in the world; and every individual of the human family is called, at some period of his life, to drink its bitter draughts; yet, in my opinion, there is a larger portion of happiness distributed among us than is usually admitted." "These observations," said Mr. Stevens, "are quite correct; yet how few wish to live their life over again. Some, who have no hope of a blissful immortality, would not object to a second birth and to a second childhood; but in general they would prefer some other course of life than that which they have run, under a supposition that they should be able to avoid the evils by which they have been oppressed, and gain the prize of mental happiness, which they have never obtained." "But the reluctance which we may feel to go back to infancy, and live through our past life is, in my opinion, no substantial argument against a preponderance of happiness in the world. If we prefer another course to that which we have run, it is because we calculate on a fewer number of evils, and a greater portion of enjoyment; but who would not willingly endure all the miseries which he has suffered, with the comforts with which he has been favoured, rather than die and enter the invisible world, where he knows not what destiny awaits him?" "If we know not what destiny awaits us in the eternal world, we ought to prefer the endless continuance of life, even when associated with the severest afflictions, rather than wish for its termination; because _here_ the most violent pulsations of anguish admit of some intermitting seasons of ease; but there, if we miss the prize, _we shall be cast out into outer darkness, where will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and for ever_."