Israel Potter - pg. 10

Chapter 3

ISRAEL GOES TO THE WARS; AND REACHING BUNKER HILL IN TIME TO BE OF SERVICE THERE, SOON AFTER IS FORCED TO EXTEND HIS TRAVELS ACROSS THE SEA INTO THE ENEMY'S LAND

LEFT TO idle lamentations, Israel might now have planted deep furrows in his brow. But stifling his pain, he chose rather to plough, than be ploughed. Farming weans man from his sorrows. That tranquil meditations. There, too, in mother earth, you may plant and reap; not, as in other things, plant and see the planting torn up by the roots. But if wandering in the wilderness; and wandering upon the waters; if felling trees; and hunting, and shipwreck; and fighting with whales, and all his other strange adventures, had not as yet cured poor Israel of his now hopeless passion; events were at hand for ever to drown it.