yet each has his fancies, opposed to his true good, in the very idea
which he has of the good. It is a singularly puzzling fact.


107

_Lustravit lampade terras._[63]--The weather and my mood have little
connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or
misfortune has little to do with the matter. I sometimes struggle
against luck, the glory of mastering it makes me master it gaily;
whereas I am sometimes surfeited in the midst of good fortune.


108

Although people may have no interest in what they are saying, we must
not absolutely conclude from this that they are not lying; for there are
some people who lie for the mere sake of lying.


109

When we are well we wonder what we would do if we were ill, but when we
are ill we take medicine cheerfully; the illness persuades us to do so.
We have no longer the passions and desires for amusements and promenades
which health gave to us, but which are incompatible with the necessities
of illness. Nature gives us, then, passions and desires suitable to our
present state.[64] We are only troubled by the fears which we, and not
nature, give ourselves, for they add to the state in which we are the
passions of the state in which we are not.