“Such is life!” There is deep meaning in that expression, though it is generally applied in a bantering manner to life in all its phases, under all its peculiar and diversified circumstances. Taking a particular view of things in general, we may say of life that it is composed of diverse and miscellaneous materials—the grave and the gay; the sad and the comic; the extraordinary and the commonplace; the flat and the piquant; the heavy and the light; the religious and the profane; the bright and the dark; the shadow and the sunshine. All these, and a great deal more, similar as well as dissimilar, enter into the composition of what we familiarly term life.

 

These elements, too, are not arranged according to order, at least, order that is perceptible to our feeble human understandings. That there does exist both order and harmony is undeniable; but we cannot see it. The elements appear to be miscellaneously intermingled—to be accidentally thrown together; yet, while looking at them in detail there seems to us a good deal of unreasonable and chaotic jumble, in regarding them as a whole, or as a series of wholes, it becomes apparent that there is a certain harmony of arrangement that may be termed kaleidoscopically beautiful; and when, in the course of events, we are called to the contemplation of something grand or lovely, followed rather abruptly by something curiously contemptible or absurd, we are tempted to give utterance to the thoughts that are too complicated and deep for rapid analysis, in the curt expression “Such is life.”

 

The physician invites his friends to a social réunion. He chats and laughs at the passing jest, or takes part in the music—the glee, or the comic song. A servant whispers in his ear. Ten minutes elapse, and he is standing by the bed of death. He watches the flickering flame; he endeavours to relieve the agonised frame; he wipes the cold sweat from the pale brow, and moistens the dry lips, or pours words of true, earnest, tender comfort into the ears of the bereaved. The contrast here is very violent and sudden. We have chosen, perhaps, the most striking instance of the kind that is afforded in the experience of men; yet such, in a greater or less degree, is life, in the case of every one born into this wonderful world of ours, and such, undoubtedly, it was intended to be. “There is a time for all things.” We were made capable of laughing and crying; therefore, these being sinless indulgences in the abstract, we ought to laugh and cry. And one of our great aims in life should be to get our hearts and affections so trained that we shall laugh and cry at the right time. It may be well to remark, in passing, that we should avoid, if possible, doing both at once.

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