conveniences of life, find them, when I most nearly consider them,
very little more than wind. But what? We are all wind throughout; and,
moreover, the wind itself, more discreet than we, loves to bluster and
shift from corner to corner; and contents itself with its proper
offices, without desiring stability and solidity- qualities that
nothing belong to it.

    The pure pleasures, as well as the pure displeasures, of the
imagination, say some, are the greatest, as was expressed by the
balance of Critolaus. 'Tis no wonder; it makes them to its own liking,
and cuts them out of the whole cloth; of this I every day see
notable examples, and, peradventure, to be desired. But I, who am of a
mixed and heavy condition, cannot snap so soon at this one simple
object, but that I negligently suffer myself to be carried away with
the present pleasures of the general human law, intellectually
sensible, and sensibly intellectual. The Cyrenaic philosophers will
have it that as corporal pains, so corporal pleasures are more
powerful, both as double and as more just. There are some, as
Aristotle says, who out of a savage kind of stupidity dislike them;
and I know others who out of ambition do the same. Why do they not,
moreover, forswear breathing? why do they not live of their own? why
not refuse light, because it shines gratis, and costs them neither
pains nor invention? Let Mars, Pallas, or Mercury afford them their
light by which to see, instead of Venus, Ceres, and Bacchus. Will they
not seek the quadrature of the circle, even when on their wives? I
hate that we should be enjoined to have our minds in the clouds,
when our bodies are at table; I would not have the mind nailed
there, nor wallow there; I would have it take place there and sit, but
not lie down. Aristippus maintained nothing but the body, as if he had
no soul; Zeno stickled only for the soul, as if he had no body; both
of them faultily. Pythagoras, they say, followed a philosophy that was
all contemplation; Socrates one that was all conduct and action; Plato
found a mean between the two; but they only say this for the sake of
talking. The true point is found in Socrates; and Plato is much more
Socratic than Pythagoric, and it becomes him better. When I dance, I
dance; when I sleep, I sleep. Nay, when I walk alone in a beautiful
orchard, if my thoughts are some part of the time taken up with
foreign occurrences, I some part of the time call them back again to
my walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of the solitude, and to
myself.

    Nature has with a motherly tenderness observed this, that the
actions she has enjoined us for our necessity should be also
pleasant to us; and she invites us to them, not only by reason, but
also by appetite, and 'tis injustice to infringe her laws. When I
see both Caesar and Alexander in the thickest of their greatest
business, so fully enjoy human and corporal pleasures, I do not hold
that they slackened their souls, but wound them up higher, by vigor of
courage, subjecting these violent employments and laborious thoughts
to the ordinary usage of life; wise, had they believed the last was
their ordinary, the first their extroardinary vocation. We are great
fools. "He has passed over his life in idleness," say we: "I have done
nothing to-day." What? have you not lived? that is not only the
fundamental, but the most illustrious of all your occupations. "Had
I been put to the management of great affairs, I should have made it
seen what I could do." Have you known how to meditate and manage
your life, you have performed the greatest work of all. For a man to
show and set out himself, nature has no need of fortune; she equally
manifests herself in all stages, and behind a curtain as well as
without one. Have you known how to regulate your conduct, you have
done a great deal more than he who has composed books. Have you
known how to take repose, you have done more than he who has taken
cities and empires.

    The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live
to purpose; all other things, to reign, to lay up treasure, to
build, are, at most, but little appendices and props. I delight to see
a general of an army, at the foot of a breach he is presently to
assault, give himself up entire and free at dinner, to talk and be
merry with his friends; to see Brutus, when heaven and earth were
conspired against him and the Roman liberty, stealing some hours of
the night from his rounds to read and abridge Polybius, in all
security. 'Tis for little souls, that truckle under the weight of
affairs, not from them to know how clearly to disengage themselves,
not to know how to lay them aside and take them up again:

                 "O fortes, pejoraque passi

           Mecum saepe viri! nunc vino pellite curas:

                 Cras ingens iterabimus aequor."

Whether it be in jest or earnest, that the theological and
Sorbonical wine, and their feasts, are turned into a proverb, I find
it reasonable they should dine so much more commodiously and
pleasantly, as they have profitably and seriously employed the morning
in the exercise of their schools. The conscience of having well
spent the other hours, is the just and savory sauce of the
dinner-table. The sages lived after that manner; and that inimitable
emulation to virtue, which astonishes us both in the one and the other
Cato, that humor of theirs, so severe as even to be importunate,
gently submits itself and yields to the laws of the human condition,
of Venus and Bacchus; according to the precepts of their sect, that
require the perfect sage to be as expert and intelligent in the use of
natural pleasures as in all other duties of life: "Cui cor sapiat,
ei et sapiat palatus."

    Relaxation and facility, methinks, wonderfully honor and best
become a strong and generous soul. Epaminondas did not think that to
take part, and that heartily, in songs and sports and dances with