The Essays, vol 11 | Page 7

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 burns with greater fury when cold comes to mix with it, that our will is more obstinate by being opposed:
"Si nunquam Danaen habuisset ahenea turris, Non esses, Danae, de Jove facta parens;"
["If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae, have been made a mother by Jove."--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.]
and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as satiety which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as rarity and difficulty:
"Omnium rerum voluptas ipso, quo debet fugare, periculo crescit."
["The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that should deter it."--Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9.]
"Galla, nega; satiatur amor, nisi gaudia torquent."
["Galla, refuse me; love is glutted with joys that are not attended with trouble."--Martial, iv. 37.]
To keep love in breath, Lycurgus made a decree that the married people of Lacedaemon should never enjoy one another but by