The Essays, vol 10 | Page 9

his mother to marry, answered, "That it
was too soon," and, being grown into years and urged again, "That it
was too late." A man must deny opportunity to every inopportune
action. The ancient Gauls' looked upon it as a very horrid thing for a
man to have society with a woman before he was twenty years of age,
and strictly recommended to the men who designed themselves for war

the keeping their virginity till well grown in years, forasmuch as
courage is abated and diverted by intercourse with women:
"Ma, or congiunto a giovinetta sposa, E lieto omai de' figli, era invilito
Negli affetti di padre et di marito."
["Now, married to a young wife and happy in children, he was
demoralised by his love as father and husband." --Tasso, Gierus., x.
39.]
Muley Hassam, king of Tunis, he whom the Emperor Charles V.
restored to his kingdom, reproached the memory of his father Mahomet
with the frequentation of women, styling him loose, effeminate, and a
getter of children.--[Of whom he had thirty-four.]--The Greek history
observes of Iccus the Tarentine, of Chryso, Astyllus, Diopompos, and
others, that to keep their bodies in order for the Olympic games and
such like exercises, they denied themselves during that preparation all
commerce with Venus. In a certain country of the Spanish Indies men
were not permitted to marry till after forty age, and yet the girls were
allowed at ten. 'Tis not time for a gentleman of thirty years old to give
place to his son who is twenty; he is himself in a condition to serve
both in the expeditions of war and in the court of his prince; has need
of all his appurtenances; and yet, doubtless, he ought to surrender a
share, but not so great an one as to forget himself for others; and for
such an one the answer that fathers have ordinarily in their mouths, "I
will not put off my clothes, before I go to bed," serves well.
But a father worn out with age and infirmities, and deprived by
weakness and want of health of the common society of men, wrongs
himself and his to amass a great heap of treasure. He has lived long
enough, if he be wise, to have a mind to strip himself to go to bed, not
to his very shirt, I confess, but to that and a good, warm dressing-gown;
the remaining pomps, of which he has no further use, he ought
voluntarily to surrender to those, to whom by the order of nature they
belong. 'Tis reason he should refer the use of those things to them,
seeing that nature has reduced him to such a state that he cannot enjoy
them himself; otherwise there is doubtless malice and envy in the case.
The greatest act of the Emperor Charles V. was that when, in imitation

of some of the ancients of his own quality, confessing it but reason to
strip ourselves when our clothes encumber and grow too heavy for us,
and to lie down when our legs begin to fail us, he resigned his
possessions, grandeur, and power to his son, when he found himself
failing in vigour, and steadiness for the conduct of his affairs suitable
with the glory he had therein acquired:
"Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne Peccet ad extremum
ridendus, et ilia ducat."
["Dismiss the old horse in good time, lest, failing in the lists, the
spectators laugh."--Horace, Epist., i., I, 8.]
This fault of not perceiving betimes and of not being sensible of the
feebleness and extreme alteration that age naturally brings both upon
body and mind, which, in my opinion, is equal, if indeed the soul has
not more than half, has lost the reputation of most of the great men in
the world. I have known in my time, and been intimately acquainted
with persons of great authority, whom one might easily discern
marvellously lapsed from the sufficiency I knew they were once
endued with, by the reputation they had acquired in their former years,
whom I could heartily, for their own sakes, have wished at home at
their ease, discharged of their public or military employments, which
were now grown too heavy for their shoulders. I have formerly been
very familiar in a gentleman's house, a widower and very old, though
healthy and cheerful enough: this gentleman had several daughters to
marry and a son already of ripe age, which brought upon him many
visitors, and a great expense, neither of which well pleased him, not
only out of consideration of frugality, but yet more for having, by
reason of his age, entered into a course of life far differing from ours. I
told him one day a little boldly, as I used to do, that he would do