nominal pleasures, I lost real ones; and my fortune impaired, and my constitution shattered, are, I must confess, the just punishment of my errors.
Take warning then by them; choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you. Follow nature, and not fashion; weigh the present enjoyment of your pleasures against the necessary consequences of them, and then let your own common-sense determine your choice. [Same date.]
A Life of Real Pleasure.—Were I to begin
the world again, with the experience which I now
have of it, I would lead a life of real, not of imaginary
pleasure. I would enjoy the pleasures of the
table and of wine; but stop short of the pains inseparably
annexed to an excess in either. I would not,
at twenty years, be a preaching missionary of
abstemiousness and sobriety; and I should let other
people do as they would, without formally and sententiously
rebuking them for it; but I would be
most firmly resolved not to destroy my own faculties
and constitution, in complaisance to those who have
no regard to their own. I would play to give me
pleasure, but not to give me pain; that is, I would
play for trifles, in mixed companies, to amuse
myself, and conform to custom; but I would take
