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And here that opinion of Socrates comes in very pertinently, who thought that if all our misfortunes were laid
in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal
portion, most people would be contented to take their own
and depart. After this manner Antimachus the poet allayed
[p. 308]
his grief when he lost his wife Lyde, whom he tenderly
loved; for he writ an elegy upon her, which he called by
her own name, and in it he numbered up all the calamities
which have befallen great men; and so by the remembrance
of other men's sorrows he assuaged his own. By this it
may appear, that he who comforts another who is macerating himself with grief, and demonstrates to him, by reckoning up their several misfortunes, that he suffers nothing
but what is common to him with other men, takes the surest
way to lessen the opinion he had of his condition, and
brings him to believe that it is not altogether so bad as he
took it to be.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 1.
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