hard to be believed;

"Tam multa: scelerum facies!"

["There are so many forms of crime."--Virgil, Georg., i. 506.]

secondly, that it is always gain to change an ill condition for one that
is uncertain; and that the ills of others ought not to afflict us so much
as our own.

I will not here omit, that I never mutiny so much against France, that I
am not perfectly friends with Paris; that city has ever had my heart from
my infancy, and it has fallen out, as of excellent things, that the more
beautiful cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this still
wins upon my affection. I love her for herself, and more in her own
native being, than in all the pomp of foreign and acquired
embellishments. I love her tenderly, even to her warts and blemishes.
I am a Frenchman only through this great city, great in people, great in
the felicity of her situation; but, above all, great and incomparable in
variety and diversity of commodities: the glory of France, and one of the
most noble ornaments of the world. May God drive our divisions far from
her. Entire and united, I think her sufficiently defended from all other
violences. I give her caution that, of all sorts of people, those will
be the worst that shall set her in discord; I have no fear for her, but
of herself, and, certainly, I have as much fear for her as for any other
part of the kingdom. Whilst she shall continue, I shall never want a
retreat, where I may stand at bay, sufficient to make me amends for
parting with any other retreat.

Not because Socrates has said so, but because it is in truth my own