> from all painful and
> disquieting thoughts? We need not wonder; for a ball has been served him,
> and he must return it to his companion. He is occupied in catching it in its
> fall from the roof, to win a game. How can he think of his own affairs,
> pray, when he has this other matter in hand? Here is a care worthy of
> occupying this great soul and taking away from him every other thought of
> the mind. This man, born to know the universe, to judge all causes, to
> govern a whole state, is altogether occupied and taken up with the business
> of catching a hare. And if he does not lower himself to this and wants
> always to be on the strain, he will be more foolish still, because he would
> raise himself above humanity; and after all, he is only a man, that is to
> say capable of little and of much, of all and of nothing; he is neither
> angel nor brute, but man.
>
> 141. Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare; it is the pleasure
> even of kings.
>
> 142. Diversion--Is not the royal dignity sufficiently great in itself to
> make its possessor happy by the mere contemplation of what he is? Must he be
> diverted from this thought like ordinary folk? I see well that a man is made
> happy by diverting him from the view of his domestic sorrows so as to occupy
> all his thoughts with the care of dancing well. But will it be the same with
> a king, and will he be happier in the pursuit of these idle amusements than
> in the contemplation of his greatness? And what more satisfactory object
> could be presented to his mind? Would it not be a deprivation of his delight
> for him to occupy his soul with the thought o