Sweet are the Uses of Adversity great Notes

This statement occurs in Shakespeare's well known play "As you like it." The Duke, who at one time lived a life of pomp and show, full of luxury, was banished to the forest, where he tested the thorns of adversity which had its own blessings. Adversity mean unfavorable circumstances and difficulties. The statement signifies the fact that adverse conditions make one learn many things. They test one's ability and courage. One's virtues find full scope for development and expression under hostile circumstances. It is not the case and comfort that brings out the best in a man but rather the roughness and suffering that ennoble him.

History is full of examples of such persons, who started with scratch and roe to eminence. Seemingly unsurmountable difficulties plagued them in the course of their career, but they faced them bravely and ultimately refused to be dominated by them. misfortune is blessing in disguise. It tests a man and brings about the best in him. Suffering is the best teacher. The bitter experience of life teach us many lessons. They are our best guides. They unmask our eyes and we can distinguish between the real and unreal. They make us mature. They inculcate in us the quality of adjustments and sense of proportion. they expand the store of our knowledge and experience and thrash our the corn from the chaff.
Fortitude is the virtue of adversity, say Bacon. It means that man should fight bravely against all sorts of unfavorable circumstance which militate against him. He should not tamely accept the dictates of compulsion of the circumstance.

It locks as though Fate constantly conspires against men. Waves of misfortune keep us continuously engaged in the struggle against them. It is not that Nature is sadist but in her own mysterious way she places obstacles in our way to test our courage, patience and character. Adversity is an opportunity to keep us awake, active, alert ready to cope with any situation but arises. Such an opportunity should be welcomed because it tests one's mettle and provides a chance to reap a rich harvest of experiences. It should be considered an occasion to impart a valuable training. Thus adversity is never a cruse, but a blessing in disguise.

Our Sweetest Songs Are Those That Tell Saddest Thought

Life is along lesson in humanity. Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret. Epicureanism is human nature drunk. Cynicism is human nature mad, and stoicism is human nature in despair. Life is a complex cobweb of multicolored threads. In the glittering texture can be seen the black threads. Human destiny is essentially sad and gloomy. Even man's best laughter is tinged with pain since he is always pre-occupied with his 'yesterdays' and 'tomorrows'. Man is often gnawed by real and imaginary worries and fears. Dr. Samel Johnson said that human life, "every-where is state in which much is too be endured and little enjoyed. "Keats sang about" the weariness, the fever and the fret" of human life. 

Thomas Hardy said, "Happiness is but an occasional episode in the general dram of pain. "Mathew Arnold sang against, "this strange disease of modern life, with its sick hurry and divided aims, its head overtaxed, its palsied heart." Life is a shade of grey. In its queer blend we cannot deny the predominance of dark colour. 

Sweet are the uses of Adversity

Adversity does not, by an means essentially imply, poverty. Poverty is only incidental to a selfish system of economic organisation. Poverty may come from idleness, intemperance, extravagance and folly. The right hand of prosperity is industry and the left hand of it frugality. When both the hands reach the stage of gangrene -the right by idleness and the left by extravagance; the child with amputated hands is poverty. Poverty is also heaped on many by a poor State administration coupled with faulty planning.

Adversity, on the other hand, implies purely the frustration of the hopes of man and the ruin of his comforts. To some it means loss of health, to some loss of wealth, to some loss of reputation, to some loss of kith and kins, and to some loss of victory of achievements; to some it means regrets and remorses, and to some hard memories and unrealized expectations. Adversity is the worst situation caused by adverse circumstances. There is nobody in the world who is immune to adversity. It may fall upon a man, a family, a community, a state, a country. But adversity is the greatest teacher. It teaches the old and the young; the humble and the proud; the great and the small. It all depends on the man to make the best use  of adversity.

Our Sweetest Songs Are Those That Tell Saddest Thought Part 2

Aristotle was of the opinion that tragedy is never depressing; it is elevating and helps purging our baser and superfluous emotions. There is always a peculiar fascination and sweetness in sadder melodies. In fact, they stir us as nothing else does. Shakespeare's tragedies are sweeter than his comedies in as much as their appeal is irresistible and their impressions enduring. When we read Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Shakuntla, Iliad, Aeneid and many other gems in the realm of literature, we are no longer spectators, but we find ourselves engaged in the action. We put our soul in communion with the soul of the writer. there intellectually elevating and spiritually purging volumes are the out-pourings of agonized hearts, tortured minds and frustrated souls.

Out of the rocky layers of wild despair, grief, impotent rage, scorn, anguish and misery, a writer of tragedy digs out a precious treasure-the treasure of Humanity. And his forte is a sweet song telling the deepest, thought. Knowing 'what man has made of man, our hearts go with the victim. Even a villain like Shylock in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice', arouses our sympathy. It is the weeping dejection; it is the bleeding heart; it is the dreadful despair and it is the strangled emotions which sing the saddest but sweetest song.

Sweet are the uses of Adversity Part 2

Prosperity makes people easy going, passive and listless. A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner, "The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean rouse the faculties; and excite adventure, prudence, skill and fortitude of the voyager." Adversity is rather the anvil on which the character of a person is forged. Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant. Without adversity the mettle of a man would really never shine out. the greatest achievements in the field of science, art and literature  are all of those men who were impelled by adversity to strive on wards. In fact, without a trial, it is impossible for one to emerge a hero.

All great men of the world, Christ, Tolstoy, Buddha, Gandhi etc, adopted the discipline on adversity voluntarily imposing poverty on themselves. Lincoln, LB, Shashtri, Gledstone, Stalkin, etc, reached the zenith of sublimity after when they were tried in the furnace of adversity. Adversity  strokes of the second World War made Churchill a hero.