list for your door, a blind for your window, a carpet for your feet, an
easy-chair stuffed with wool for your back, your fire lit at the first
sign of cold, and a shade to your lamp; and thanks to all these
precautions, the least draught makes you catch cold, common chairs give
you no rest, and you must wear spectacles to support the light of day.
You have thought you were acquiring comforts, and you have only
contracted infirmities.

"Quinto"

"Ah! enough, enough, doctor!" cried I. "Pray, do not carry your
examination farther; do not attach a sense of remorse to each of my
pleasures."

The old doctor rubbed his nose with his snuffbox.

"You see," said he, more gently, and rising at the same time, "you would
escape from the truth. You shrink from inquiry--a proof that you are
guilty. 'Habemus confitentem reum'! But at least, my friend, do not go
on laying the blame on Time, like an old woman."

Thereupon he again felt my pulse, and took his leave, declaring that his
function was at an end, and that the rest depended upon myself.

When the doctor was gone, I set about reflecting upon what he had said.

Although his words were too sweeping, they were not the less true in the
main. How often we accuse chance of an illness, the origin of which we
should seek in ourselves! Perhaps it would have been wiser to let him
finish the examination he had begun.