HE THAT SETS UP HIS REST UPON CONTINGENCIES SHALL NEVER BE QUIET.
Never pronounce any man happy that depends upon fortune for his
happiness; for nothing can be more preposterous than to place the
good of a reasonable creature in unreasonable things. If I have lost
any thing, it was adventitious; and the less money, the less trouble;
the less favor, the less envy; nay, even in those cases that put us
out of their wits, it is not the loss itself, but the opinion of the
loss, that troubles us. It is a common mistake to account those things
necessary that are superfluous, and to depend upon fortune for the
felicity of life, which arises only from virtue. There is no trusting
to her smiles; the sea swells and rages in a moment, and the ships are
swallowed at night, in the very place where they sported themselves in
the morning. And fortune has the same power over princes that it has
over empires, over nations that it has over cities, and the same power
over cities that it has over private men. Where is that estate that may
not be followed upon the heel with famine and beggary? that dignity
which the next moment may not be laid in the dust? that kingdom that is
secure from desolation and ruin? The period of all things is at hand,
as well that which casts out the fortunate as the other that delivers
the unhappy; and that which may fall out at any time may fall out this
very day. What _shall_ come to pass I know not, but what _may_ come to
pass I know: so that I will despair of nothing, but expect everything;
and whatsoever Providence remits is clear gain. Every moment, if it
spares me, deceives me; and yet in some sort it does not deceive me;
for though I know that any thing may happen, yet I know likewise
that everything will not. I will hope the best, and provide for the
worst. Methinks we should not find so much fault with Fortune for her
inconstancy when we ourselves suffer a change every moment that we
live; only other changes make more noise, and this steals upon us like
the shadow upon a dial, every jot as certainly, but more insensibly.
The burning of Lyons may serve to show us that we are never safe, and
to arm us against all surprises. The terror of it must needs be great,
for the calamity is almost without example. If it had been fired by an
enemy, the flame would have left some further mischief to have been
done by the soldiers; but to be wholly consumed, we have not heard of
many earthquakes so pernicious: so many rarities to be destroyed in
one night; and in the depth of peace to suffer an outrage beyond the
extremity of war; who would believe it? but twelve hours betwixt so
fair a city and none at all! It was laid in ashes in less time than it
would require to tell the story.
To stand unshaken in such a calamity is hardly to be expected, and
our wonder can but be equal to our grief. Let this accident teach us
to provide against all possibilities that fall within the power of
fortune. All external things are under her dominion: one while she
calls our hands to her assistance; another while she contents herself
with her own force, and destroys us with mischiefs of which we cannot
find the author. No time, place, or condition, is excepted; she makes
our very pleasures painful to us; she makes war upon us in the depth of
peace, and turns the means of our security into an occasion of fear;
she turns a friend into an enemy, and makes a foe of a companion; we
suffer the effects of war without any adversary; and rather than fail,
our felicity shall be the cause of our destruction. Lest we should
either forget or neglect her power, every day produces something
extraordinary. She persecutes the most temperate with sickness, the
strongest constitutions with the phthisis; she brings the innocent
to punishment, and the most retired she assaults with tumults. Those
glories that have grown up with many ages, with infinite labor and
expense, and under the favor of many auspicious providences, one day
scatters and brings to nothing. He that pronounced a day, nay, an hour,
sufficient for the destruction of the greatest empire, might have
fallen to a moment.
It were some comfort yet to the frailty of mankind and of human
affairs, if things might but decay as slowly as they rise; but they
grow by degrees, and they fall to ruin in an instant. There is no
felicity in anything either private or public; men, nations, and
cities, have all their fates and periods; our very entertainments are
not without terror, and our calamity rises there where we least expect
it. Those kingdoms that stood the shock both of foreign wars and civil,
come to destruction without the sight of an enemy. Nay, we are to dread
our peace and felicity more than violence, because we are here taken
unprovided; unless in a state of peace we do the duty of men in war,
and say to ourselves, _Whatsoever may be, will be_. I am to-day safe
and happy in the love of my country; I am to-morrow banished: to-day in
pleasure, peace, health; to-morrow broken upon a wheel, led in triumph,
and in the agony of sickness. Let us therefore prepare for a shipwreck
in the port, and for a tempest in a calm. One violence drives me from
my country, another ravishes that from me; and that very place where
a man can hardly pass this day for a crowd may be to-morrow a desert.
Wherefore let us set before our eyes the whole condition of human
nature, and consider as well what _may_ happen as what commonly _does_.
The way to make future calamities easy to us in the sufferance, is to
make them familiar to us in the contemplation. How many cities in Asia,
Achaia, Assyria, Macedonia, have been swallowed up by earthquakes?
nay, whole countries are lost, and large provinces laid under water;
but time brings all things to an end; for all the works of mortals
are mortal; all possessions and their possessors are uncertain and
perishable; and what wonder is it to lose anything at any time, when we
must one day lose all?
That which we call our own is but lent us; and what we have received
_gratis_ we must return without complaint. That which Fortune gives
us this hour she may take away the next; and he that trusts to her
favors, shall either find himself deceived, or if he be not, he will
at least be troubled, because he may be so. There is no defence in
walls, fortifications, and engines, against the power of fortune; we
must provide ourselves within, and when we are safe there, we are
invincible; we may be battered, but not taken. She throws her gifts
among us, and we sweat and scuffle for them, never considering how few
are the better for that which is expected by all. Some are transported
with what they get; others tormented for what they miss; and many
times there is a leg or an arm broken in a contest for a counter. She
gives us honors, riches, favors, only to take them away again, either
by violence or treachery: so that they frequently turn to the damage
of the receiver. She throws out baits for us, and sets traps as we do
for birds and beasts; her bounties are snares and lime-twigs to us; we
think that we take, but we are taken. If they had any thing in them
that was substantial, they would some time or other fill and quiet us;
but they serve only to provoke our appetite without anything more than
pomp and show to allay it. But the best of it is, if a man cannot mend
his fortune, he may yet mend his manners, and put himself so far out of
her reach, that whether she gives or takes, it shall be all one to us;
for we are neither the greater for the one, nor the less for the other.
We call this a dark room, or that a light one; when it is in itself
neither the one nor the other, but only as the day and the night render
it. And so it is in riches, strength of body, beauty, honor, command:
and likewise in pain, sickness, banishment, death: which are in
themselves middle and indifferent things, and only good or bad as they
are influenced by virtue. To weep, lament, and groan, is to renounce
our duty; and it is the same weakness on the other side to exult and
rejoice. I would rather make my fortune than expect it; being neither
depressed with her injuries, nor dazzled with her favors. When Zeno was
told, that all his goods were drowned; “Why then,” says he, “Fortune
has a mind to make me a philosopher.” It is a great matter for a man to
advance his mind above her threats or flatteries; for he that has once
gotten the better of her is safe forever.
It is some comfort yet to the unfortunate, that great men lie under the
lash for company; and that death spares the palace no more than the
cottage, and that whoever is above me has a power also above him. Do
we not daily see funerals without trouble, princes deposed, countries
depopulated, towns sacked; without so much as thinking how soon it may
be our own case? whereas, if we would but prepare and arm ourselves
against the iniquities of fortune, we should never be surprised.
When we see any man banished, beggared, tortured, we are to account,
that though the mischief fell upon another, it was levelled at us. What
wonder is it if, of so many thousands of dangers that are constantly
hovering about us, one comes to hit us at last? That which befalls any
man, may befall every man; and then it breaks the force of a present
calamity to provide against the future. Whatsoever our lot is, we must
bear it: as suppose it be contumely, cruelty, fire, sword, pains,
diseases, or a prey to wild beasts; there is no struggling, nor any
remedy but moderation. It is to no purpose to bewail any part of our
life, when life itself is miserable throughout; and the whole flux of
it only a course of transition from one misfortune to another.
A man may as well wonder that he should be cold in winter, sick at sea,
or have his bones clatter together in a wagon, as at the encounter
of ill accidents and crosses in the passage of human life; and it is
in vain to run away from fortune, as if there were any hiding-place
wherein she could not find us; or to expect any quiet from her; for she
makes life a perpetual state of war, without so much as any respite or
truce. This we may conclude upon, that her empire is but imaginary, and
that whosoever serves her, makes himself a voluntary slave; for “the
things that are often contemned by the inconsiderate, and always by the
wise, are in themselves neither good nor evil:” as pleasure and pains;
prosperity and adversity; which can only operate upon our outward
condition, without any proper and necessary effect upon the mind.