"Who cannot do as he desires, must do
What lies within his power. Folly it is
To wish what cannot be. The wise man holds
That from such wishing he must free himself.
Our joy and grief consist alike in this:
In knowing what to will and what to do;
But only he whose judgment never strays
Beyond the threshold of the right learns this.
Nor is it always good to have one's wish;
What seemeth sweet full oft to bitter turns.
My tears have flown at having my desire.
Therefore, O reader of these lines, if thou
Wouldest be good, and be to others dear,
Will always to be able to do right."
In Richter's works of Leonardo are many fables: "A razor, having come
out of the sheath in which it was usually concealed, and placed itself
in the sunlight, saw how brightly the sun was reflected from its
surface. Mightily pleased thereat, it began to reason with itself after
this fashion: 'Shall I now go back to the shop which I have just
quitted? Certainly it cannot be pleasing to the gods that such dazzling
beauty should be linked to such baseness of spirit. What a madness it
would be that should lead me to shave the soaped beards of country
bumpkins! Is this a form fitted to such base mechanical uses? Assuredly
not. I shall withdraw myself into some secluded spot, and, in calm
repose, pass away my life.'
"Having therefore concealed itself for some months, on leaving its
sheath one day and returning to the open air, it found itself looking
just like a rusty saw, and totally unable to reflect the glorious sun
from its tarnished surface. It lamented in vain this irreparable loss,
and said to itself, 'How much better had I kept up the lost keenness of
my edge, by practising with my friend the barber. What has become of my
once brilliant surface? This abominable rust has eaten it all up.' If
genius chooses to indulge in sloth, it must not expect to preserve the
keen edge which the rust of ignorance will soon destroy."
Richter also gives many pages of terse moral sentiments, showing that Da
Vinci, in his more than thirty years of writing,--he began to write when
he was about thirty,--had thought deeply and probably conformed his life
to his thoughts.
"It is easier to contend with evil at the first than at the last.
"You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.
"If the thing loved is base, the lover becomes base.
"That is not riches which may be lost; virtue is our true good, and the
true reward of its possessor. That cannot be lost, that never deserts
us, but when life leaves us. As to property and external riches, hold
them with trembling; they often leave their possessor in contempt, and
mocked at for having lost them.
"Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you
understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct
yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.
"The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect;
because it may thus drive out useless things, and retain the good.
"Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker.
"Reprove your friend in secret, and praise him openly."
In the midst of the corruption of that age, we hear no word breathed
against the character of this eager, brilliant, many-sided man. He won
from his pupils the most complete devotion, and he seems to have given
as fond an affection in return. This possibly satisfied the craving of
the human heart for love. Perhaps, after all, life did not appear as
satisfactory as he could have wished, with all his worship of the
beautiful, for he says, "When I thought I was learning to live, I was
but learning to die." He seemed at the zenith of his powers when death
came; but who shall estimate the value of a life by its length? He said,
"As a day well spent gives a joyful sleep, so does life well employed
give a joyful death.... A life well spent is long."