PAGE 10
Of Managing the Will
by
“Etenim ipsae se impellunt, ubi semel a ratione discessum est;
ipsaque sibi imbecillitas indulget, in altumque provehitur
imprudens, nec reperit locum consistendi.”
[“For they throw themselves headlong when once they lose their
reason; and infirmity so far indulges itself, and from want of
prudence is carried out into deep water, nor finds a place to
shelter it.”–Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., iv. 18.]
I am betimes sensible of the little breezes that begin to sing and whistle within, forerunners of the storm:
“Ceu flamina prima
Cum deprensa fremunt sylvis et caeca volutant
Murmura, venturos nautis prodentia ventos.”
[“As the breezes, pent in the woods, first send out dull murmurs, announcing the approach of winds to mariners.”–AEneid, x. 97.]
How often have I done myself a manifest injustice to avoid the hazard of having yet a worse done me by the judges, after an age of vexations, dirty and vile practices, more enemies to my nature than fire or the rack?
“Convenit a litibus, quantum licet, et nescio an paulo
plus etiam quam licet, abhorrentem esse: est enim non
modo liberale, paululum nonnunquam de suo jure decedere,
sed interdum etiam fructuosum.”
[“A man should abhor lawsuits as much as he may, and I know not
whether not something more; for ’tis not only liberal, but sometimes
also advantageous, too, a little to recede from one’s right.
–“Cicero, De Offic., ii. 18.]
Were we wise, we ought to rejoice and boast, as I one day heard a young gentleman of a good family very innocently do, that his mother had lost her cause, as if it had been a cough, a fever, or something very troublesome to keep. Even the favours that fortune might have given me through relationship or acquaintance with those who have sovereign authority in those affairs, I have very conscientiously and very carefully avoided employing them to the prejudice of others, and of advancing my pretensions above their true right. In fine, I have so much prevailed by my endeavours (and happily I may say it) that I am to this day a virgin from all suits in law; though I have had very fair offers made me, and with very just title, would I have hearkened to them, and a virgin from quarrels too. I have almost passed over a long life without any offence of moment, either active or passive, or without ever hearing a worse word than my own name: a rare favour of Heaven.
Our greatest agitations have ridiculous springs and causes: what ruin did our last Duke of Burgundy run into about a cartload of sheepskins! And was not the graving of a seal the first and principal cause of the greatest commotion that this machine of the world ever underwent? –[The civil war between Marius and Sylla; see Plutarch’s Life of Marius, c. 3.]–for Pompey and Caesar were but the offsets and continuation of the two others: and I have in my time seen the wisest heads in this kingdom assembled with great ceremony, and at the public expense, about treaties and agreements, of which the true decision, in the meantime, absolutely depended upon the ladies’ cabinet council, and the inclination of some bit of a woman.
The poets very well understood this when they put all Greece and Asia to fire and sword about an apple. Look why that man hazards his life and honour upon the fortune of his rapier and dagger; let him acquaint you with the occasion of the quarrel; he cannot do it without blushing: the occasion is so idle and frivolous.
A little thing will engage you in it; but being once embarked, all the cords draw; great provisions are then required, more hard and more important. How much easier is it not to enter in than it is to get out? Now we should proceed contrary to the reed, which, at its first springing, produces a long and straight shoot, but afterwards, as if tired and out of breath, it runs into thick and frequent joints and knots, as so many pauses which demonstrate that it has no more its first vigour and firmness; ’twere better to begin gently and coldly, and to keep one’s breath and vigorous efforts for the height and stress of the business. We guide affairs in their beginnings, and have them in our own power; but afterwards, when they are once at work, ’tis they that guide and govern us, and we are to follow them.