The Essays, vol 15 | Page 5

effectually so, and glorious to boot;
but opinion has not power enough over me to give me an appetite to
them. I covet not so much to have them magnanimous, magnificent,
and pompous, as I do to have them sweet, facile, and ready:
"A natura discedimus; populo nos damus, nullius rei bono auctori."
["We depart from nature and give ourselves to the people, who
understand nothing."--Seneca, Ep., 99.]
My philosophy is in action, in natural and present practice, very little in
fancy: what if I should take pleasure in playing at cob-nut or to whip a
top!
"Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem."
["He did not sacrifice his health even to rumours." Ennius, apud Cicero,
De Offic., i. 24]
Pleasure is a quality of very little ambition; it thinks itself rich enough
of itself without any addition of repute; and is best pleased where most
retired. A young man should be whipped who pretends to a taste in
wine and sauces; there was nothing which, at that age, I less valued or
knew: now I begin to learn; I am very much ashamed on't; but what
should I do? I am more ashamed and vexed at the occasions that put me
upon't. 'Tis for us to dote and trifle away the time, and for young men
to stand upon their reputation and nice punctilios; they are going
towards the world and the world's opinion; we are retiring from it:
"Sibi arma, sibi equos, sibi hastas, sibi clavam, sibi pilam, sibi
natationes, et cursus habeant: nobis senibus, ex lusionibus multis, talos
relinquant et tesseras;"
["Let them reserve to themselves arms, horses, spears, clubs, tennis,
swimming, and races; and of all the sports leave to us old men cards
and dice."--Cicero, De Senec., c. 16.]
the laws themselves send us home. I can do no less in favour of this

wretched condition into which my age has thrown me than furnish it
with toys to play withal, as they do children; and, in truth, we become
such. Both wisdom and folly will have enough to do to support and
relieve me by alternate services in this calamity of age:
"Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem."
["Mingle with counsels a brief interval of folly." --Horace, Od., iv. 12,
27.]
I accordingly avoid the lightest punctures; and those that formerly
would not have rippled the skin, now pierce me through and through:
my habit of body is now so naturally declining to ill:
"In fragili corpore odiosa omnis offensio est;"
["In a fragile body every shock is obnoxious." --Cicero, De Senec., c.
18.]
"Mensque pati durum sustinet aegra nihil."
["And the infirm mind can bear no difficult exertion." --Ovid, De
Ponto., i. 5, 18.]
I have ever been very susceptibly tender as to offences: I am much
more tender now, and open throughout.
"Et minimae vires frangere quassa valent."
["And little force suffices to break what was cracked before." --Ovid,
De Tris., iii. 11, 22.]
My judgment restrains me from kicking against and murmuring at the
inconveniences that nature orders me to endure, but it does not take
away my feeling them: I, who have no other thing in my aim but to live
and be merry, would run from one end of the world to the other to seek
out one good year of pleasant and jocund tranquillity. A melancholic
and dull tranquillity may be enough for me, but it benumbs and
stupefies me; I am not contented with it. If there be any person, any
knot of good company in country or city, in France or elsewhere,
resident or in motion, who can like my humour, and whose humours I
can like, let them but whistle and I will run and furnish them with
essays in flesh and bone:
Seeing it is the privilege of the mind to rescue itself from old age, I
advise mine to it with all the power I have; let it meanwhile continue
green, and flourish if it can, like mistletoe upon a dead tree. But I fear
'tis a traitor; it has contracted so strict a fraternity with the body that it
leaves me at every turn, to follow that in its need. I wheedle and deal

with it apart in vain; I try in vain to wean it from this correspondence,
to no effect; quote to it Seneca and Catullus, and ladies and royal
masques; if its companion have the stone, it seems to have it too; even
the faculties that are most peculiarly and properly its own cannot then
perform their functions, but manifestly appear stupefied and asleep;
there is no sprightliness in its productions, if there be not at the same
time an equal proportion in the body too.
Our masters are to blame, that in searching out the causes of the
extraordinary emotions of the soul,