If any one shall tell me that it is to undervalue the muses, to make use of them only for sport and to pass away the time, I shall tell him, that he does not know, so well as I, the value of the sport, the pleasure, and the pastime; I can hardly forbear to add that all other end is ridiculous. I live from hand to mouth, and, with reverence be it spoken, I only live for myself; there all my designs terminate. I studied, when young, for ostentation; since, to make myself a little wiser; and now for my diversion, but never for any profit. A vain and prodigal humor I had after this sort of furniture, not only for the supplying my own need, but, moreover, for ornament and outward show, I have since quite cured myself of.
Books have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose them; but every good has its ill; 'tis a pleasure that is not pure and clean, no more than others: it has its inconveniences, and great ones too. The soul indeed is exercised therein; but the body, the care of which I must withal never neglect, remains in the mean time without action, and grows heavy and somber. I know no excess more prejudicial to me, nor more to be avoided in this my declining age.
THAT THE SOUL DISCHARGES HER PASSIONS UPON FALSE OBJECTS WHERE TRUE ONES ARE WANTING[22]
A gentleman of my country, who was very often tormented with the gout, being importun'd by his physicians totally to reclaim his appetite from all manner of salt meats, was wont presently to reply that he must needs have something to quarrel with in the extremity of his fits, and that he fancy'd that railing at and cursing one while the Bologna sausages, and another the dry'd tongues and the hams, was some mitigation to his pain. And in good earnest, as the arm when it is advanced to strike, if it fail of meeting with that upon which it was design'd to discharge the blow, and spends itself in vain, does offend the striker himself; and as also, that to make a pleasant prospect the sight should not be lost and dilated in a vast extent of empty air, but have some bounds to limit and circumscribe it at a reasonable distance:
"As winds do lose their strength, unless withstood By some dark grove of strong opposing wood."