reasoning; to be one's own servant, to lie hard, to put out our own eyes,
to throw our wealth into the river, to go in search of grief; these, by
the misery of this life, aiming at bliss in another; those by laying
themselves low to avoid the danger of falling: all such are acts of an
excessive virtue. The stoutest and most resolute natures render even
their seclusion glorious and exemplary:

"Tuta et parvula laudo,
Quum res deficiunt, satis inter vilia fortis
Verum, ubi quid melius contingit et unctius, idem
Hos sapere et solos aio bene vivere, quorum
Conspicitur nitidis fundata pecunia villis."

["When means are deficient, I laud a safe and humble condition,
content with little: but when things grow better and more easy, I
all the same say that you alone are wise and live well, whose
invested money is visible in beautiful villas."
--Horace, Ep., i. 15, 42.]

A great deal less would serve my turn well enough. 'Tis enough for me,
under fortune's favour, to prepare myself for her disgrace, and, being at
my ease, to represent to myself, as far as my imagination can stretch,
the ill to come; as we do at jousts and tiltings, where we counterfeit
war in the greatest calm of peace. I do not think Arcesilaus the
philosopher the less temperate and virtuous for knowing that he made use
of gold and silver vessels, when the condition of his fortune allowed him
so to do; I have indeed a better opinion of him than if he had denied
himself what he used with liberality and moderation. I see the utmost
limits of natural necessity: and considering a poor man begging at my
door, ofttimes more jocund and more healthy than I myself am, I put