any pressure. What the usage of his time made him account roughness,
that of ours makes us look upon as effeminacy.

Do but observe the difference betwixt the way of living of my labourers
and my own; the Scythians and Indians have nothing more remote both from
my capacity and my form. I have picked up charity boys to serve me: who
soon after have quitted both my kitchen and livery, only that they might
return to their former course of life; and I found one afterwards,
picking mussels out of the sewer for his dinner, whom I could neither by
entreaties nor threats reclaim from the sweetness he found in indigence.
Beggars have their magnificences and delights, as well as the rich, and,
'tis said, their dignities and polities. These are the effects of
custom; she can mould us, not only into what form she pleases (the sages
say we ought to apply ourselves to the best, which she will soon make
easy to us), but also to change and variation, which is the most noble
and most useful instruction of all she teaches us. The best of my bodily
conditions is that I am flexible and not very obstinate: I have
inclinations more my own and ordinary, and more agreeable than others;
but I am diverted from them with very little ado, and easily slip into a
contrary course. A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awaken his
vigour and to keep it from growing faint and rusty; and there is no
course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule
and discipline;

"Ad primum lapidem vectari quum placet, hora
Sumitur ex libro; si prurit frictus ocelli
Angulus, inspecta genesi, collyria quaerit;"

["When he is pleased to have himself carried to the first milestone,
the hour is chosen from the almanac; if he but rub the corner of his