The Essays, vol 11 | Page 7

Arte Poet., 467]
He then told Marcellinus that it would not be unbecoming, as what is
left on the tables when we have eaten is given to the attendants, so, life
being ended, to distribute something to those who have been our
servants. Now Marcellinus was of a free and liberal spirit; he, therefore,
divided a certain sum of money amongst his servants, and consoled
them. As to the rest, he had no need of steel nor of blood: he resolved
to go out of this life and not to run out of it; not to escape from death,
but to essay it. And to give himself leisure to deal with it, having
forsaken all manner of nourishment, the third day following, after
having caused himself to be sprinkled with warm water, he fainted by

degrees, and not without some kind of pleasure, as he himself declared.
In fact, such as have been acquainted with these faintings, proceeding
from weakness, say that they are therein sensible of no manner of pain,
but rather feel a kind of delight, as in the passage to sleep and best.
These are studied and digested deaths.
But to the end that Cato only may furnish out the whole example of
virtue, it seems as if his good with which the leisure to confront and
struggle with death, reinforcing his destiny had put his ill one into the
hand he gave himself the blow, seeing he had courage in the danger,
instead of letting it go less. And if I had had to represent him in his
supreme station, I should have done it in the posture of tearing out his
bloody bowels, rather than with his sword in his hand, as did the
statuaries of his time, for this second murder was much more furious
than the first.

CHAPTER XIV
THAT OUR MIND HINDERS ITSELF
'Tis a pleasant imagination to fancy a mind exactly balanced betwixt
two equal desires: for, doubtless, it can never pitch upon either,
forasmuch as the choice and application would manifest an inequality
of esteem; and were we set betwixt the bottle and the ham, with an
equal appetite to drink and eat, there would doubtless be no remedy,
but we must die of thirst and hunger. To provide against this
inconvenience, the Stoics, when they are asked whence the election in
the soul of two indifferent things proceeds, and that makes us, out of a
great number of crowns, rather take one than another, they being all
alike, and there being no reason to incline us to such a preference, make
answer, that this movement of the soul is extraordinary and irregular,
entering into us by a foreign, accidental, and fortuitous impulse. It
might rather, methinks, he said, that nothing presents itself to us
wherein there is not some difference, how little soever; and that, either
by the sight or touch, there is always some choice that, though it be

imperceptibly, tempts and attracts us; so, whoever shall presuppose a
packthread equally strong throughout, it is utterly impossible it should
break; for, where will you have the breaking to begin? and that it
should break altogether is not in nature. Whoever, also, should
hereunto join the geometrical propositions that, by the certainty of their
demonstrations, conclude the contained to be greater than the
containing, the centre to be as great as its circumference, and that find
out two lines incessantly approaching each other, which yet can never
meet, and the philosopher's stone, and the quadrature of the circle,
where the reason and the effect are so opposite, might, peradventure,
find some argument to second this bold saying of Pliny:
"Solum certum nihil esse certi, et homine nihil miserius ant superbius."
["It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more
miserable or more proud than man."--Nat. Hist., ii. 7.]

CHAPTER XV
THAT OUR DESIRES ARE AUGMENTED BY DIFFICULTY
There is no reason that has not its contrary, say the wisest of the
philosophers. I was just now ruminating on the excellent saying one of
the ancients alleges for the contempt of life: "No good can bring
pleasure, unless it be that for the loss of which we are beforehand
prepared."
"In aequo est dolor amissae rei, et timor amittendae,"
["The grief of losing a thing, and the fear of losing it, are
equal."--Seneca, Ep., 98.]
meaning by this that the fruition of life cannot be truly pleasant to us if
we are in fear of losing it. It might, however, be said, on the contrary,
that we hug and embrace this good so much the more earnestly, and
with so much greater affection, by how much we see it the less assured

and fear to have it taken from us: for it is evident, as fire