The Essays, vol 17 | Page 6

for so much as I
have seen, 'tis an employment more troublesome than hard; whoever is
capable of anything else, will easily do this. Had I a mind to be rich,
that way would seem too long; I had served my kings, a more profitable
traffic than any other. Since I pretend to nothing but the reputation of
having got nothing or dissipated nothing, conformably to the rest of my
life, improper either to do good or ill of any moment, and that I only
desire to pass on, I can do it, thanks be to God, without any great
endeavour. At the worst, evermore prevent poverty by lessening your
expense; 'tis that which I make my great concern, and doubt not but to
do it before I shall be compelled. As to the rest, I have sufficiently
settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have, and live contentedly:
"Non aestimatione census, verum victu atque cultu, terminantur
pecunix modus."
["'Tis not by the value of possessions, but by our daily subsistence and
tillage, that our riches are truly estimated." --Cicero, Paradox, vi. 3.]
My real need does not so wholly take up all I have, that Fortune has not

whereon to fasten her teeth without biting to the quick. My presence,
heedless and ignorant as it is, does me great service in my domestic
affairs; I employ myself in them, but it goes against the hair, finding
that I have this in my house, that though I burn my candle at one end by
myself, the other is not spared.
Journeys do me no harm but only by their expense, which is great, and
more than I am well able to bear, being always wont to travel with not
only a necessary, but a handsome equipage; I must make them so much
shorter and fewer; I spend therein but the froth, and what I have
reserved for such uses, delaying and deferring my motion till that be
ready. I will not that the pleasure of going abroad spoil the pleasure of
being retired at home; on the contrary, I intend they shall nourish and
favour one another. Fortune has assisted me in this, that since my
principal profession in this life was to live at ease, and rather idly than
busily, she has deprived me of the necessity of growing rich to provide
for the multitude of my heirs. If there be not enough for one, of that
whereof I had so plentifully enough, at his peril be it: his imprudence
will not deserve that I should wish him any more. And every one,
according to the example of Phocion, provides sufficiently for his
children who so provides for them as to leave them as much as was left
him. I should by no means like Crates' way. He left his money in the
hands of a banker with this condition--that if his children were fools, he
should then give it to them; if wise, he should then distribute it to the
most foolish of the people; as if fools, for being less capable of living
without riches, were more capable of using them.
At all events, the damage occasioned by my absence seems not to
deserve, so long as I am able to support it, that I should waive the
occasions of diverting myself by that troublesome assistance.
There is always something that goes amiss. The affairs, one while of
one house, and then of another, tear you to pieces; you pry into
everything too near; your perspicacity hurts you here, as well as in
other things. I steal away from occasions of vexing myself, and turn
from the knowledge of things that go amiss; and yet I cannot so order it,
but that every hour I jostle against something or other that displeases

me; and the tricks that they most conceal from me, are those that I the
soonest come to know; some there are that, not to make matters worse,
a man must himself help to conceal. Vain vexations; vain sometimes,
but always vexations. The smallest and slightest impediments are the
most piercing: and as little letters most tire the eyes, so do little affairs
most disturb us. The rout of little ills more offend than one, how great
soever. By how much domestic thorns are numerous and slight, by so
much they prick deeper and without warning, easily surprising us when
least we suspect them.
[Now Homer shews us clearly enough how surprise gives the
advantage; who represents Ulysses weeping at the death of his dog; and
not weeping at the tears of his mother; the first accident, trivial as it
was, got the better of him, coming upon him quite unexpectedly; he
sustained the second, though more potent, because he was prepared for
it. 'Tis