You have demonstration for a First Cause: you see he must be
good as well as powerful, because there is nothing to make him
otherwise, and goodness of itself is preferable. Yet you have against
this, what is very certain, the unhappiness of human life. This,
however, gives us reason to hope for a future state of compensation,
that there may be a perfect system. But of that we were not sure, till
we had a positive revelation.' I told him, that his _Rasselas_ had often
made me unhappy; for it represented the misery of human life so well,
and so convincingly to a thinking mind, that if at any time the
impression wore off, and I felt myself easy, I began to suspect some
delusion.
On Monday, April 20[936], I found him at home in the morning. We talked of
a gentleman[937] who we apprehended was gradually involving his
circumstances by bad management. JOHNSON. 'Wasting a fortune is
evaporation by a thousand imperceptible means. If it were a stream,
they'd stop it. You must speak to him. It is really miserable. Were he a
gamester, it could be said he had hopes of winning. Were he a bankrupt
in trade, he might have grown rich; but he has neither spirit to spend
nor resolution to spare.
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