“You,” says he, “are here disputing about the immortality of the soul, and I am now going to learn the truth of it. If I discover any thing upon that point, you shall hear of it.” Nay, the most timorous of creatures, when they see there is no escaping, they oppose themselves to all dangers; the despair gives them courage, and the necessity overcomes the fear. Socrates was thirty days in prison after his sentence, and had time enough to have starved himself, and so to have prevented the poison: but he gave the world the blessing of his life as long as he could, and took that fatal draught in the meditation and contempt of death.
Marcellinus, in a deliberation upon death, called several of his friends about him: one was fearful, and advised what he himself would have done in the case; another gave the counsel which he thought Marcellinus would like best; but a friend of his that was a Stoic, and a stout man, reasoned the matter to him after this manner; Marcellinus do not trouble yourself, as if it were such a mighty business that you have now in hand; it is nothing to _live_; all your servants do it, nay, your very beasts too; but to die honestly and resolutely, that is a great point. Consider with yourself there is nothing pleasant in life but what you have tasted already, and that which is to come is but the same over again; and how many men are there in the world that rather choose to die than to suffer the nauseous tediousness of the repetition? Upon which discourse he fasted himself to death. It was the custom of Pacuvius to solemnize, in a kind of pageantry, every day his own funeral. When he had swilled and gormandized to a luxurious and beastly excess, he was carried away from supper to bed with this song and acclamation, “He has lived, he has lived.” That which he did in lewdness, will become us to do in sobriety and prudence. If it shall please God to add another day to our lives, let us thankfully receive it; but, however, it is our happiest and securest course so to compose ourselves to-night, that we may have no anxious dependence on to-morrow. “He that can say, I have lived this day, makes the next clear again.”
Death is the worst that either the severity of laws or the cruelty of tyrants can impose upon us; and it is the utmost extent of the dominion of Fortune. He that is fortified against that, must, consequently, be superior to all other difficulties that are put in the way to it. Nay, and on some occasions, it requires more courage to live than to die.
He that is not prepared for death shall be perpetually troubled, as well with vain apprehensions, as with real dangers. It is not death itself that is dreadful, but the fear of it that goes before it. When the mind is under a consternation, there is no state of life that can please us; for we do not so endeavor to avoid mischiefs as to run away from them, and the greatest slaughter is upon a flying enemy. Had not a man better breathe out his last once for all, than lie agonizing in pains, consuming by inches, losing of his blood by drops? and yet how many are there that are ready to betray their country, and their friends, and to prostitute their very wives and daughters, to preserve a miserable carcass! Madmen and children have no apprehension of death; and it were a shame that our reason should not do as much toward our security as their folly. But the great matter is to die considerately and cheerfully upon the foundation of virtue; for life in itself is irksome, and only eating and drinking in a circle.
How many are there that, betwixt the apprehensions of death and the miseries of life, are at their wits’ end what to do with themselves?
Wherefore let us fortify ourselves against those calamities from which the prince is no more exempt than the beggar. Pompey the Great had his head taken off by a boy and a eunuch, (young Ptolemy and Photinus.)
Caligula commanded the tribune Dæcimus to kill Lepidus; and another tribune (Chæreus) did as much for Caligula. Never was a man so great but he was as liable to suffer mischief as he was able to do it. Has not a thief, or an enemy, your throat at his mercy? nay, and the meanest of servants has the power of life and death over his master; for whosoever contemns his own life may be master of another body’s.
You will find in story, that the displeasure of servants has been as fatal as that of tyrants: and what matters it the power of him we fear, when the thing we fear is in every body’s power? Suppose I fall into the hands of an enemy, and the conqueror condemns me to be led in triumph; it is but carrying me thither whither I should have gone without him, that is to say, toward death, whither I have been marching ever since I was born. It is the fear of our last hour that disquiets all the rest. By the justice of all constitutions, mankind is condemned to a capital punishment; now, how despicable would that man appear, who, being sentenced to death in common with the whole world, should only petition that he might be the last man brought to the block?
Some men are particularly afraid of thunder, and yet extremely careless of other and of greater dangers: as if that were all they have to fear. Will not a sword, a stone, a fever, do the work as well? Suppose the bolt should hit us, it were yet braver to die with a stroke than with the bare apprehension of it: beside the vanity of imagining that heaven and earth should be put into such a disorder only for the death of one man. A good and a brave man is not moved with lightning, tempest, or earthquakes; but perhaps he would voluntarily plunge himself into that gulf, where otherwise he should only fall. The cutting of a corn, or the swallowing of a fly, is enough to dispatch a man; and it is no matter how great that is that brings me to my death, so long as death itself is but little. Life is a small matter; but it is a matter of importance to contemn it. Nature, that begat us, expels us, and a better and a safer place is provided for us. And what is death but a ceasing to be what we were before? We are kindled and put out: to cease to be, and not to begin to be, is the same thing. We die daily, and while we are growing, our life decreases; every moment that passes takes away part of it; all that is past is lost; nay, we divide with death the very instant that we live. As the last sand in the glass does not measure the hour, but finishes it; so the last moment that we live does not make up death, but concludes. There are some that pray more earnestly for death than we do for life; but it is better to receive it cheerfully when it comes than to hasten it before the time.
“But what is it that we would live any longer for?” Not for our pleasures; for those we have tasted over and over, even to satiety: so that there is no point of luxury that is new to us. “But a man would be loth to leave his country and his friends behind him;” that is to say, he would have them go first; for that is the least part of his care.
“Well; but I would fain live to do more good, and discharge myself in the offices of life;” as if to die were not the duty of every man that lives. We are loth to leave our possessions; and no man swims well with his luggage. We are all of us equally fearful of death, and ignorant of life; but what can be more shameful than to be solicitous upon the brink of security? If death be at any time to be feared, it is always to be feared; but the way never to fear it, is to be often thinking of it. To what end is it to put off for a little while that which we cannot avoid? He that dies does but follow him that is dead.
“Why are we then so long afraid of that which is so little awhile of doing?” How miserable are those people that spend their lives in the dismal apprehensions of death! for they are beset on all hands, and every minute in dread of a surprise. We must therefore look about us, as if we were in an enemy’s country; and consider our last hour, not as a punishment, but as the law of Nature: the fear of it is a continual palpitation of the heart, and he that overcomes that terror shall never be troubled with any other.
Life is a navigation; we are perpetually wallowing and dashing one against another; sometimes we suffer shipwreck, but we are always in danger and in expectation of it. And what is it when it comes, but either the end of a journey, or a passage? It is as great a folly to fear _death_ as to fear _old age_; nay, as to fear life itself; for he that would not die ought not to live, since death is the condition of life. Beside that it is a madness to fear a thing that is certain; for where there is no doubt, there is no place for fear.
We are still chiding of Fate, and even those that exact the most rigorous justice betwixt man and man are yet themselves unjust to Providence. “Why was such a one taken away in the prime of his years?”
As if it were the number of years that makes death easy to us, and not the temper of the mind. He that would live a little longer to-day, would be as loth to die a hundred years hence. But which is more reasonable for us to obey Nature, or for Nature to obey us? Go we must at last, and no matter how soon. It is the work of Fate to make us live long, but it is the business of virtue to make a short life sufficient.
Life is to be measured by action, not by time; a man may die old at thirty, and young at fourscore: nay, the one lives after death, and the other perished before he died. I look upon age among the effects of chance. How long I shall live is in the power of others, but it is in my own how well. The largest space of time is to live till a man is wise. He that dies of old age does no more than go to bed when he is weary. Death is the test of life, and it is that only which discovers what we are, and distinguishes betwixt ostentation and virtue. A man may dispute, cite great authorities, talk learnedly, huff it out, and yet be rotten at heart. But let us soberly attend our business: and since it is uncertain _when_, or _where_, we shall die, let us look for death in all places, and at all times: we can never study that point too much, which we can never come to experiment whether we know it or not. It is a blessed thing to dispatch the business of life before we die, and then to expect death in the possession of a happy life. He is the great man who is willing to die when his life is pleasant to him.
An honest life is not a greater good than an honest death. How many brave young men, by an instinct of Nature, are carried on to great actions, and even to the contempt of all hazards!
It is childish to go out of the world groaning and wailing as we came into it. Our bodies must be thrown away, as the secundine that wraps up the infant, the other being only the covering of the soul; we shall then discover the secrets of Nature; the darkness shall be discussed, and our souls irradiated with light and glory: a glory without a shadow; a glory that shall surround us, and from whence we shall look down and see day and night beneath us. If we cannot lift up our eyes toward the lamp of heaven without dazzling, what shall we do when we come to behold the divine light in its illustrious original? That death which we so much dread and decline, is not the determination, but the intermission of a life, which will return again. All those things, that are the very cause of life, are the way to death: we fear it as we do fame; but it is a great folly to fear words. Some people are so impatient of life, that they are still wishing for death; but he that wishes to die does not desire it: let us rather wait God’s pleasure, and pray for health and life. If we have a mind to live, why do we wish to die? If we have a mind to die, we may do it without talking of it. Men are a great deal more resolute in the article of _death_ itself than they are about the circumstances of it: for it gives a man courage to consider that his fate is inevitable: the slow approaches of death are the most troublesome to us; as we see many a gladiator, who upon his wounds, will direct his adversary’s weapon to his very heart, though but timorous perhaps in the combat. There are some that have not the heart either to live or die; that is a sad case. But this we are sure of, “the fear of death is a continual slavery, as the contempt of it is certain liberty.”
CHAPTER XXII.
CONSOLATIONS AGAINST DEATH, FROM THE PROVIDENCE AND THE NECESSITY OF IT.
This life is only a prelude to eternity, where we are to expect another original, and another state of things; we have no prospect of heaven here but at a distance; let us therefore expect our last and decretory hour with courage. The last (I say) to our bodies, but not to our minds: our luggage we leave behind us, and return as naked out of the world as we came into it. The day which we fear as our last is but the birth-day of our eternity; and it is the only way to it. So that what we fear as a rock, proves to be but a port, in many cases to be desired, never to be refused; and he that dies young has only made a quick voyage of it. Some are becalmed, others cut it away before wind; and we live just as we sail: first, we rub our childhood out of sight; our youth next; and then our middle age: after that follows old age, and brings us to the common end of mankind.
It is a great providence that we have more ways out of the world than we have into it. Our security stands upon a point, the very article of death. It draws a great many blessings into a very narrow compass: and although the fruit of it does not seem to extend to the defunct, yet the difficulty of it is more than balanced by the contemplation of the future. Nay, suppose that all the business of this world should be forgotten, or my memory, traduced, what is all this to me? “I have done my duty.” Undoubtedly that which puts an end to all other evils, cannot be a very great evil itself, and yet it is no easy thing for flesh and blood to despise life. What if death comes? If it does not stay with us why should we fear it? One hangs himself for a mistress; another leaps the garret-window to avoid a choleric master; a third runs away and stabs himself, rather than he will be brought back again. We see the force even of our infirmities, and shall we not then do greater things for the love of virtue? To suffer death is but the law of nature; and it is a great comfort that it can be done but once; in the very convulsions of it we have this consolation, that our pain is near an end, and that it frees us from all the miseries of life.
What it is we know not, and it were rash to condemn what we do not understand; but this we presume, either that we shall pass out of this into a better life, where we shall live with tranquillity and splendor, in diviner mansions, or else return to our first principles, free from the sense of any inconvenience. There is nothing immortal, nor many things lasting; by but divers ways everything comes to an end. What an arrogance is it then, when the world itself stands condemned to a dissolution, that man alone should expect to live forever! It is unjust not to allow unto the giver the power of disposing of his own bounty, and a folly only to value the present. Death is as much a debt as money, and life is but a journey towards it: some dispatch it sooner, others later, but we must all have the same period. The thunderbolt is undoubtedly just that draws even from those that are struck with it a veneration.
A great soul takes no delight in staying with the body: it considers whence it came, and knows whither it is to go. The day will come that shall separate this mixture of soul and body, of divine and human; my body I will leave where I found it, my soul I will restore to heaven, which would have been there already, but for the clog that keeps it down: and beside, how many men have been the worse for longer living, that might have died with reputation if they had been sooner taken away! How many disappointments of hopeful youths, that have proved dissolute men! Over and above the ruins, shipwrecks, torments, prisons, that attend long life; a blessing so deceitful, that if a child were in condition to judge of it, and at liberty to refuse it, he would not take it.
What Providence has made necessary, human prudence should comply with cheerfully: as there is a necessity of death, so that necessity is equal and invincible. No man has cause of complaint for that which every man must suffer as well as himself. When we _should_ die, we _will not_, and when we _would not_ we _must_: but our fate is fixed, and unavoidable is the decree. Why do we then stand trembling when the time comes? Why do we not as well lament that we did not live a thousand years ago, as that we shall not be alive a thousand years hence? It is but traveling the great road, and to the place whither we must all go at last. It is but submitting to the law of Nature, and to that lot which the whole world has suffered that is gone before us; and so must they too that are to come after us. Nay, how many thousands, when our time comes, will expire in the same moment with us! He that will not follow shall be drawn by force: and is it not much better now to do that willingly which we shall otherwise be made to do in spite of our hearts?
The sons of mortal parents must expect a mortal posterity—death is the end of great and small. We are born helpless, and exposed to the injuries of all creatures and of all weathers. The very necessaries of life are deadly to us; we meet with our fate in our dishes, in our cups, and in the very air we breathe; nay, our very birth is inauspicious, for we come into the world weeping, and in the middle of our designs, while we are meditating great matters, and stretching of our thoughts to after ages, death cuts us off, and our longest date is only the revolution of a few years. One man dies at the table; another goes away in his sleep, a third in his mistress’s arms, a fourth is stabbed, another is stung with an adder, or crushed with the fall of a house. We have several ways to our end, but the end itself, which is death, is still the same. Whether we die by a sword, by a halter, by a potion, or by a disease, it is all but _death_. A child dies in the swaddling-clouts, and an old man at a hundred—they are both mortal alike, though the one goes sooner than the other. All that lies betwixt the cradle and the grave is uncertain. If we compute the _troubles_, the life even of a child is long: if the _sweetness_ of the _passage_, that of an old man is short; the whole is slippery and deceitful, and only death certain; and yet all people complain of that which never deceived any man. Senecio raised himself from a small beginning to a vast fortune, being very well skilled in the faculties both of getting and of keeping, and either of them was sufficient for the doing of his business. He was a man infinitely careful both of his patrimony and of his body. He gave me a morning’s visit, (says our author,) and after that visit he went away and spent the rest of the day with a friend of his that was desperately sick. At night, he was merry at supper, and seized immediately after with a quinsy which dispatched him in a few hours. This man that had money at use in all places, and in the very course and height of his prosperity was thus cut off. How foolish a thing is it then for a man to flatter himself with long hopes, and to pretend to dispose of the future: nay, the very present slips through our fingers, and there is not that moment which we can call our own.
How vain a thing is it for us to enter upon projects, and to say to ourselves, “Well, I will go build, purchase, discharge such offices, settle my affairs, and then retire!” We are all of us born to the same casualties—all equally frail and uncertain of to-morrow. At the very altar where we pray for life, we learn to die, by seeing the sacrifices killed before us. But there is no need of a wound, or searching the heart for it, when the noose of a cord, or the smothering of a pillow will do the work. All things have their seasons—they begin, they increase, and they die. The heavens and the earth grow old, and are appointed their periods.
That which we call _death_ is but a pause or suspension; and, in truth, a progress to life, only our thoughts look downward upon the body, and not forward upon things to come. All things under the sun are mortal—cities—empires—and the time will come when it shall be a question where they were, and, perchance, whether ever they had a being or not. Some will be destroyed by war, others by luxury, fire, inundations, earthquakes—why should it trouble me then to die, as a forerunner of an universal dissolution? A great mind submits itself to God, and suffers willingly what the law of the universe will otherwise bring to pass upon necessity.
That good old man Bassus, (though with one foot in the grave,) how cheerful a mind does he bear. He lives in the view of death, and contemplates his own end with less concern of thought or countenance, than he would do another man’s. It is a hard lesson, and we are a long time a learning of it, to receive our death without trouble, especially in the case of Bassus: in other deaths there is a mixture of hope—a disease may be cured, a fire quenched, a falling house either propped or avoided, the sea may swallow a man and throw him up again, a pardon may interpose twixt the ax and the body—but in the case of old age there is no place for either hope or intercession.
Let us live in our bodies, therefore, as if we were only to lodge in them this night, and to leave them to-morrow. It is the frequent thought of death that must fortify us against the necessity of it. He that has armed himself against poverty, may, perhaps, come to live in plenty. A man may strengthen himself against pain and yet live in a state of health; against the loss of friends, and never lose any, but he that fortifies himself against the fear of death shall most certainly have occasion to employ that virtue. It is the care of a wise and a good man to look to his manners and actions; and rather how well he lives than how long, for to die sooner or later is not the business, but to die well or ill, for “death brings us to immortality.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
AGAINST IMMODERATE SORROW FOR THE DEATH OF FRIENDS.
Next to the encounter of death in our own bodies, the most sensible calamity to an honest man is the death of a friend; and we are not in truth without some generous instances of those that have preferred a friend’s life before their own; and yet this affliction, which by nature is so grievous to us, is by virtue and Providence made familiar and easy.
To lament the death of a friend is both natural and just; a sigh or a tear I would allow to his memory: but no profuse or obstinate sorrow. Clamorous and public lamentations are not so much the effects of grief as of vain-glory. He that is sadder in company than alone, shows rather the ambition of his sorrow than the piety of it. Nay, and in the violence of his passion there fall out twenty things that set him a-laughing. At the long-run, time cures all, but it were better done by moderation and wisdom. Some people do as good as set a watch upon themselves, as if they were afraid that their grief would make an escape. The ostentation of grief is many times more than the grief itself. When any body is within hearing, what groans and outcries! when they are alone and private, all is hush and quiet: so soon as any body comes in, they are at it again; and down they throw themselves upon the bed; fall to wringing of their hands, and wishing of themselves dead; which they might have executed by themselves; but their sorrow goes off with the company. We forsake nature, and run over to the practices of the people, that never were the authors of anything that is good. If destiny were to be wrought upon by tears, I would allow you to spend your days and nights in sadness and mourning, tearing of your hair, and beating of your breast; but if Fate be inexorable, and death will keep what it has taken, grief is to no purpose. And yet I would not advise insensibility and hardness; it were inhumanity, and not virtue, not to be moved at the separation of familiar friends and relations: now, in such cases, we cannot command ourselves, we cannot forbear weeping, and we ought not to forbear: but let us not pass the bounds of affection, and run into imitation; within these limits it is some ease to the mind.
A wise man gives way to tears in some cases, and cannot avoid them in others. When one is struck with the surprise of ill-news, as the death of a friend, or the like; or upon the last embrace of an acquaintance under the hand of an executioner, he lies under a natural necessity of weeping and trembling. In another case, we may indulge our sorrow, as upon the memory of a dead friend’s conversation or kindness, one may let fall tears of generosity and joy. We favor the one, and we are overcome by the other; and this is well: but we are not upon any terms to force them: they may flow of their own accord, without derogating from the dignity of a wise man; who at the same time both preserves his gravity, and obeys nature. Nay, there is a certain _decorum_ even in weeping; for excess of sorrow is as foolish as profuse laughter.
Why do we not as well cry, when our trees that we took pleasure in, shed their leaves, as at the loss of our satisfactions; when the next season repairs them, either with the same again, or others in their places. We may _accuse_ Fate, but we cannot _alter_ it; for it is hard and inexorable, and not to be removed either with reproaches or tears.
They may carry _us_ to the _dead_, but never bring _them_ back again to us. If reason does not put an end to our sorrows, fortune never will: one is pinched with poverty; another solicited with ambition, and fears the very wealth that he coveted. One is troubled for the loss of children; another for the want of them: so that we shall sooner want tears than matter for them; let us therefore spare that for which we have so much occasion. I do confess, that in the very parting of friends there is something of uneasiness and trouble; but it is rather voluntary than natural; and it is custom more than sense that affects us: we do rather impose a sorrow upon ourselves than submit to it; as people cry when they have company, and when nobody looks on, all is well again. To mourn without measure is folly, and not to mourn at all is insensibility. The best temper is betwixt piety and reason; to be sensible, but neither transported nor cast down. He that can put a stop to his tears and pleasures when he will is safe. It is an equal infelicity to be either too soft or too hard: we are overcome by the one, and put to struggle with the other. There is a certain intemperance in that sorrow that passes the rules of modesty; and yet great piety is, in many cases, a dispensation to good manners. The loss of a son or of a friend, cuts a man to the heart, and there is no opposing the first violence of his passion; but when a man comes once to deliver himself wholly up to lamentations, he is to understand, that though some tears deserve compassion, others are yet ridiculous. A grief that is fresh finds pity and comfort, but when it is inveterate it is laughed at, for it is either counterfeit or foolish. Beside that, to weep excessively for the dead is an affront to the living. The most justifiable cause of mourning is to see good men come to ill ends, and virtue oppressed by the iniquity of Fortune. But in this case, too, they either suffer resolutely, and yield us delight in their courage and example, or meanly, and so give us the less trouble for the loss.
He that dies cheerfully, dries up my tears; and he that dies whiningly, does not deserve them. I would bear the death of friends and children with the same constancy that I would expect my own, and no more lament the one than fear the other. He that bethinks himself, how often friends have been parted, will find more time lost among the living, than upon the dead; and the most desperate mourners are they that cared least for their friends when they were living; for they think to redeem their credits, for want of kindness to the living, by extravagant ravings after the dead. Some (I know) will have grief to be only the perverse delight of a restless mind, and sorrows and pleasures to be near akin; and there are, I am confident, that find joy even in their tears. But which is more barbarous, to be insensible of grief for the death of a friend, or to fish for pleasure in grief, when a son perhaps is burning, or a friend expiring? To forget one’s friend, to bury the memory with the body, to lament out of measure, is all inhuman. He that is gone either would not have his friend tormented, or does not know that he is so: if he does not feel it, it is superfluous; if he does, it is unacceptable to him. If reason cannot prevail, reputation may; for immoderate mourning lessens a man’s character: it is a shameful thing for a wise man to make the _weariness_ of grieving the _remedy_ of it. In time, the most stubborn grief will leave us, if in prudence we do not leave that first.
But do I grieve for my friend’s sake or for my own? Why should I afflict myself for the loss of him that is either happy or not at all in being? In the one case it is envy, and in the other it is madness.
We are apt to say, “What would I give to see him again, and to enjoy his conversation! I was never sad in his company: my heart leaped whenever I met him; I want him wherever I go.” All that is to be said is, “The greater the loss, the greater is the virtue to overcome it.”
If grieving will do no good, it is an idle thing to grieve; and if that which has befallen one man remains to all, it is as unjust to complain.
The whole world is upon the march towards the same point; why do we not cry for ourselves that are to follow, as well as for him that has gone first? Why do we not as well lament beforehand for that which we know will be, and can not possibly but be? He is not _gone_, but _sent before_. As there are many things that he has lost, so there are many things that he does not fear; as anger, jealousy, envy, etc. Is he not more happy in desiring nothing than miserable in what he has lost? We do not mourn for the absent, why then for the dead, who are effectually no other? We have lost one blessing, but we have many left; and shall not all these satisfactions support us against one sorrow?
The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one. As there is a sharpness in some fruits, and a bitterness in some wines that please us, so there is a mixture in the remembrance of friends, where the loss of their company is sweetened again by the contemplation of their virtues. In some respects, I have lost what I had, and in others, I retain still what I have lost. It is an ill construction of Providence to reflect only upon my friend’s being taken away, without any regard to the benefit of his being once given me. Let us therefore make the best of our friends while we have them; for how long we shall keep them is uncertain. I have lost a hopeful son, but how many fathers have been deceived in their expectations! and how many noble families have been destroyed by luxury and riot! He that grieves for the loss of a son, what if he had lost a friend? and yet he that has lost a friend has more cause of joy that he once had him, than of grief that he is taken away. Shall a man bury his friendship with his friend? We are ungrateful for that which is past, in hope of what is to come; as if that which is to come would not quickly be past too. That which is past we are sure of. We may receive satisfaction, it is true, both from the future and what is already past; the one by expectation, and the other by memory; only the one may possibly not come to pass, and it is impossible to make the other not to have been.
But there is no applying of consolation to fresh and bleeding sorrow; the very discourse irritates the grief and inflames it. It is like an unseasonable medicine in a disease; when the first violence is over, it will be more tractable, and endure the handling. Those people whose minds are weakened by long felicity may be allowed to groan and complain, but it is otherwise with those that have led their days in misfortunes. A long course of adversity has this good in it, that though it vexes a body a great while, it comes to harden us at last; as a raw soldier shrinks at every wound, and dreads the surgeon more than an enemy; whereas a _veteran_ sees his own body cut and lamed with as little concern as if it were another’s. With the same resolution should we stand the shock and cure of all misfortunes; we are never the better for our experience, if we have not yet learned to be miserable.
And there is no thought of curing us by the diversion of sports and entertainments; we are apt to fall into relapses; wherefore we had better overcome our sorrow than delude it.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CONSOLATION AGAINST BANISHMENT AND BODILY PAIN.
It is a masterpiece to draw good out of evil; and, by the help of virtue, to improve misfortunes into blessings. “It is a sad condition,” you will say, “for a man to be barred the freedom of his own country.”
And is not this the case of thousands that we meet every day in the streets? Some for ambition; others, to negotiate, or for curiosity, delight, friendship, study, experience, luxury, vanity, discontent: some to exercise their virtues, others their vices; and not a few to prostitute either their bodies or their eloquence? To pass now from pleasant countries into the worst of islands; let them be never so barren or rocky, the people never so barbarous, or the clime never so intemperate, he that is banished thither shall find many strangers to live there for their pleasure. The mind of man is naturally curious and restless; which is no wonder, considering their divine original; for heavenly things are always in motion: witness the stars, and the orbs, which are perpetually moving, rolling, and changing of place and according to the law and appointment of Nature. But here are no woods, you will say, no rivers, no gold nor pearl, no commodity for traffic or commerce; nay, hardly provision enough to keep the inhabitants from starving. It is very right; here are no palaces, no artificial grottoes, or materials for luxury and excess; but we lie under the protection of Heaven; and a poor cottage for a retreat is more worth than the most magnificent temple, when that cottage is consecrated by an honest man under the guard of his virtue. Shall any man think banishment grievous, when he may take such company along with him!
Nor is there any banishment but yields enough for our necessities, and no kingdom is sufficient for superfluities. It is the mind that makes us rich in a desert; and if the body be but kept alive, the soul enjoys all spiritual felicities in abundance. What signifies the being banished from one spot of ground to another, to a man that has