"The
best thing for being sad", replied
Merlin, beginning to
puff and
blow, "is to
learn something. That is the only thing that
never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your
anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to
the disorder of your veins, you may miss your
only love, you may see the world about you
devastated by
evil lunatics, or know your
honour trampled in
the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn."
T.H. White, The Once and Future King, 1939