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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: artificial. Their pleasures, poor as they were, could not be
preserved pure, but were embittered by petty competitions and
worthless emulation. They were always jealous of the beauty of
each other, of a quality to which solicitude can add nothing, and
from which detraction can take nothing away. Many were in love
with triflers like themselves, and many fancied that they were in
love when in truth they were only idle. Their affection was not
fixed on sense or virtue, and therefore seldom ended but in
vexation. Their grief, however, like their joy, was transient;
everything floated in their mind unconnected with the past or
future, so that one desire easily gave way to another, as a second
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