A Thought

I quote Samuel Johnson:

It is indeed a great alleviation of sickness to be nursed by a mother,and it is a comfort in return to have the prospect of being nursed by a daughter, even at that hour when all human attention must be vain. From that social desire of being valuable to each other, which produces kindness and officiousness, it proceeds, and must proceed,that there is some pleasure in being able to give pain. To roll the weak eyes of helpless anguish and see nothing on any side but cold indifference, will, I hope, happen to none I love or value; it may tend to withdraw the mind from life, but it has no tendency to kindle those affections which fit us for a purer and nobler state.

Yet when any man finds himself disposed to complain with how little care he is regarded, let him reflect how little he contributes to the happiness of others and how little, from the most part, he suffers from their pains, It is perhaps not to be lamented, that those solicitudes are not long nor frequent, which must commonly be in vain; nor can we wonder that, in a state in which all have so much to feel of their own evils, very few have leisure for those of another. However, it is so ordered, that few suffer from want of assistance; and that kindness which does not assist, however pleasing, may be spared.

End of quote