"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, besides attributing it to a divine ecstasy, love, martial fierceness, poesy, wine, they have not also attributed a part to health: a boiling, vigorous, full, and lazy health, such as formerly the verdure of youth and security, by fits, supplied me withal; that fire of sprightliness and gaiety darts into the mind flashes that are lively and bright beyond our natural light, and of all enthusiasms the most jovial, if not the most extravagant.
It is, then, no wonder if a contrary state stupefy and clog my spirit, and produce a contrary effect:
"Ad nullum consurgit opus, cum corpore languet;"
["When the mind is languishing, the body is good for nothing."
(Or:) "It rises to no effort; it languishes with the body."--Pseudo Gallus, i. 125. and yet would have me obliged to it for giving, as it wants to make out, much less consent to this stupidity than is the ordinary case with men of my age. Let us, at least, whilst we have truce, drive away incommodities and difficulties from our commerce:
"Dum licet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus:"
["Whilst we can, let us banish old age from the brow."--Herod., Ep., xiii. 7.]
"Tetrica sunt amcenanda jocularibus."
["Sour things are to be sweetened with those that are pleasant."--Sidonius Apollin., Ep., i. 9.]
I love a gay and civil wisdom, and fly from all sourness and austerity of manners, all repellent, mien being suspected by me:
"Tristemque vultus tetrici arrogantiam:"
["The arrogant sadness of a crabbed face."--Auctor Incert.]
"Et habet tristis quoque turba cinaedos."
["And the dull crowd also has its voluptuaries." (Or:)
"An austere countenance sometimes covers a debauched mind."--Idem.]
I am very much of Plato's opinion, who says that facile or harsh humours are great indications of the good or ill disposition of the mind.
Socrates had a constant countenance, but serene and smiling, not sourly austere, like the elder Crassus, whom no one ever saw laugh. Virtue is a pleasant and gay quality.
I know very well that few will quarrel with the licence of my writings, who have not more to quarrel with in the licence of their own thoughts:
I conform myself well enough to their inclinations, but I offend their eyes. 'Tis a fine humour to strain the writings of Plato, to wrest his pretended intercourses with Phaedo, Dion, Stella, and Archeanassa:
"Non pudeat dicere, quod non pudet sentire."
["Let us not be ashamed to speak what we are not ashamed to think."]
I hate a froward and dismal spirit, that slips over all the pleasures of life and seizes and feeds upon misfortunes; like flies, that cannot stick to a smooth and polished body, but fix and repose themselves upon craggy and rough places, and like cupping-glasses, that only suck and attract bad blood.