 Friends had parted, for the Night: Tell me, my dear Sir, said
Harry,
are there different Kinds of Grief, or is it, merely, that Grief affects us in different Manners?
When I wept for my dear Father, my Mother and Brother, my Affliction was anguishing and altogether bitter, without any Species of alleviating Sensation to compensate my Misery. But, it was far otherwise with me to Night; when I grieved in the Grief of your old and faithful Domestics, I felt my Heart breaking, but I was pleased that it should break; I felt that it was my Happiness so to grieve; and I could wish a Return of the same sweet Sensations.
The Reason is this, my Love: When you lamented your Parents, you lamented Yourself in your private and personal Losses. Your Affliction was just, it was natural, it was laudable. But still it was confined, it participated but little of the Emotion that is excited by the Affliction of Others, and the Anguish was the keener by being nearly limited to your own Bosom and your own Concerns.
But, in the Griefs of my old and loving Servants, this Night; you became wholly expanded; you went beyond, you went out of yourself. You felt, without Reflection, how delightful it is to go forth, with your God, in his social, generous, noble, and divine Sensibilities. And you delightfully felt, my
Harry,
that such a House of Mourning is more joyous to your Soul, than all the Festivals that Flesh and Sense can open before you.
And now, my Child, I will finally, and once for all, lay open the very horrible and detestable Nature of SELF in your Soul.
SELF appears to us, as the Whole of our Existence, as the Sum total of All, in which we are interested or concerned. It is as a NARCISSUS, self-delighted, self-enamoured. It desires, it craves, and claims, as its Right, the Loves, Attachments, and Respects of all Mankind. But, does it acquire them, my
Harry?
O, never, never. SELF never was beloved, never will be beloved, never was honourable or respectable in the Eye of any Creature. And the Characters of the
Patriot,
the
Hero,
the
Friend,
and the
Lover,
are only so far amiable, so far revereable, as they are supposed to have gone forth from the Confines of SELF.
As Mr.
Clinton
proposed to wait the Return of the Marquis, he employed the mean Season in Endeavours to amuse
