There can be no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind, that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to communicate it to:
"Si cum hac exceptione detur sapientia, ut illam inclusam teneam, nec enuntiem, rejiciam."
["If wisdom be conferred with this reservation, that I must keep it to myself, and not communicate it to others, I would none of it."--"Seneca, Ep., 6.]
This other has strained it one note higher:
"Si contigerit ea vita sapienti, ut ommum rerum afliuentibus copiis, quamvis omnia, quae cognitione digna sunt, summo otio secum ipse consideret et contempletur, tamen, si solitudo tanta sit, ut hominem videre non possit, excedat a vita."
["If such a condition of life should happen to a wise man, that in the greatest plenty of all conveniences he might, at the most undisturbed leisure, consider and contemplate all things worth the knowing, yet if his solitude be such that he must not see a man, let him depart from life."--Cicero, De Offic., i. 43.]
Architas pleases me when he says, "that it would be unpleasant, even in heaven itself, to wander in those great and divine celestial bodies without a companion. But yet 'tis much better to be alone than in foolish and troublesome company. Aristippus loved to live as a stranger in all places:
"Me si fata meis paterentur ducere vitam Auspiciis,"
["If the fates would let me live in my own way."--AEneid, iv. 340.]
I should choose to pass away the greatest part of my life on horseback:
"Visere gestiens, Qua pane debacchentur ignes, Qua nebula, pluviique rores."
["Visit the regions where the sun burns, where are the thick rain-clouds and the frosts."--Horace, Od., iii. 3, 54.]
"Have you not more easy diversions at home? What do you there want? Is not your house situated in a sweet and healthful air, sufficiently furnished, and more than sufficiently large? Has not the royal majesty been more than once there entertained with all its train? Are there not more below your family in good ease than there are above it in eminence?
Is there any local, extraordinary, indigestible thought that afflicts you?"
"Qua to nunc coquat, et vexet sub pectore fixa."
["That may now worry you, and vex, fixed in your breast."--Cicero, De Senect, c. 1, Ex Ennio.]
"Where do you think to live without disturbance?"
"Nunquam simpliciter Fortuna indulget."
["Fortune is never simply complaisant (unmixed)."--Quintus Curtius, iv. 14]
You see, then, it is only you that trouble yourself; you will everywhere follow yourself, and everywhere complain; for there is no satisfaction here below, but either for brutish or for divine souls. He who, on so just an occasion, has no contentment, where will he think to find it?
How many thousands of men terminate their wishes in such a condition as yours? Do but reform yourself; for that is wholly in your own power! whereas you have no other right but patience towards fortune:
"Nulla placida quies est, nisi quam ratio composuit."
["There is no tranquillity but that which reason has conferred."--Seneca, Ep., 56.]
I see the reason of this advice, and see it perfectly well; but he might sooner have done, and more pertinently, in bidding me in one word be wise; that resolution is beyond wisdom; 'tis her precise work and product. Thus the physician keeps preaching to a poor languishing patient to "be cheerful"; but he would advise him a little more discreetly in bidding him "be well." For my part, I am but a man of the common sort. 'Tis a wholesome precept, certain and easy to be understood, "Be content with what you have," that is to say, with reason: and yet to follow this advice is no more in the power of the wise men of the world than in me. 'Tis a common saying, but of a terrible extent: what does it not comprehend? All things fall under discretion and qualification. I know very well that, to take it by the letter, this pleasure of travelling is a testimony of uneasiness and irresolution, and, in sooth, these two are our governing and predominating qualities.
Yes, I confess, I see nothing, not so much as in a dream, in a wish, whereon I could set up my rest: variety only, and the possession of diversity, can satisfy me; that is, if anything can. In travelling, it pleases me that I may stay where I like, without inconvenience, and that I have a place wherein commodiously to divert myself. I love a private life, because 'tis my own choice that I love it, not by any dissenting from or dislike of public life, which, peradventure, is as much according to my complexion. I serve my prince more cheerfully because it is by the free election of my own judgment and reason, without any particular obligation; and that I am not reduced and constrained so to do for being rejected or disliked by the other party; and so of all the rest. I hate the morsels that necessity carves me; any commodity upon which I had only to depend would have me by the throat;
"Alter remus aquas, alter mihi radat arenas;"
["Let me have one oar in the water, and with the other rake the shore."--Propertius, iii. 3, 23.] one cord will never hold me fast enough. You will say, there is vanity in this way of living. But where is there not? All these fine precepts are vanity, and all wisdom is vanity:
"Dominus novit cogitationes sapientum, quoniam vanae sunt."
["The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain."--Ps. xciii. II; or I Cor. iii. 20.]
These exquisite subtleties are only fit for sermons; they are discourses that will send us all saddled into the other world. Life is a material and corporal motion, an action imperfect and irregular of its own proper essence; I make it my business to serve it according to itself:
"Quisque suos patimur manes."
["We each of us suffer our own particular demon."--AEneid, vi. 743.]
"Sic est faciendum, ut contra naturam universam nihil contendamus; ea tamen conservata propriam sequamur."