tell us that it is always unpleasing? For what human means will ever
attain its enjoyment? The most perfect have been fain to content
themselves to aspire unto it, and to approach it only, without ever
possessing it. But they are deceived, seeing that of all the pleasures
we know, the very pursuit is pleasant. The attempt ever relishes of the
quality of the thing to which it is directed, for it is a good part of,
and consubstantial with, the effect. The felicity and beatitude that
glitters in Virtue, shines throughout all her appurtenances and avenues,
even to the first entry and utmost limits.

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of
death is one of the greatest, as the means that accommodates human life
with a soft and easy tranquillity, and gives us a pure and pleasant taste
of living, without which all other pleasure would be extinct. Which is
the reason why all the rules centre and concur in this one article. And
although they all in like manner, with common accord, teach us also to
despise pain, poverty, and the other accidents to which human life is
subject, it is not, nevertheless, with the same solicitude, as well by
reason these accidents are not of so great necessity, the greater part of
mankind passing over their whole lives without ever knowing what poverty
is, and some without sorrow or sickness, as Xenophilus the musician, who
lived a hundred and six years in a perfect and continual health; as also
because, at the worst, death can, whenever we please, cut short and put
an end to all other inconveniences. But as to death, it is inevitable:--

"Omnes eodem cogimur; omnium
Versatur urna serius ocius
Sors exitura, et nos in aeternum
Exilium impositura cymbae."