When I consider the instability of human affairs and the variations of
fortune, I find nothing more uncertain or restless than the life of
man. Nature has given to animals an excellent remedy under disasters,
which is the ignorance of them. We seem better treated in
intelligence, foresight, and memory. No doubt these are admirable
presents; but they often annoy more than they assist us. A prey to
unuseful or distressing cares, we are tormented by the present, the
past, and the future; and, as if we feared we should not be miserable
enough, we join to the evil we suffer the remembrance of a former
distress and the apprehension of some future calamity. This is the
Cerberus with three heads we combat without ceasing. Our life might be
gay and happy if we would; but we eagerly seek subjects of affliction
to render it irksome and melancholy. We pass the first years of this
life in the shades of ignorance, the succeeding ones in pain and
labor, the latter part in grief and remorse, and the whole in error;
nor do we suffer ourselves to possess one bright day without a cloud.
[Footnote 28: From the "Treatise on the Remedies of Good and Bad
Fortune." An English translation of this work under the title
"Phisicke Against Fortune," made by Thomas Twyne, was published in
London in 1579.]
Let us examine this matter with sincerity, and we shall agree that our
distresses chiefly arise from ourselves. It is virtue alone which can
render us superior to Fortune; we quit her standard, and the combat is
no longer equal. Fortune mocks us; she turns us on her wheel: she
raises and abases us at her pleasure, but her power is founded on our
weakness. This is an old-rooted evil, but it is not incurable: there
is nothing a firm and elevated mind can not accomplish. The discourse
of the wise and the study of good books are the best remedies I know
of; but to these we must join the consent of the soul, without which
the best advice will be useless. What gratitude do we not owe to those
great men who, tho dead many ages before us, live with us by their
works, discourse with us, are our masters and guides, and serve us as
pilots in the navigation of life, where our vessel is agitated without
ceasing by the storms of our passions! It is here that true philosophy
brings us to a safe port, by a sure and easy passage; not like that of
the schools, which, raising us on its airy and deceitful wings, and
causing us to hover on the clouds of frivolous dispute, let us fall
without any light or instruction in the same place where she took us
up.
Dear friend, I do not attempt to exhort you to the study I judge so
important. Nature has given you a taste for all knowledge, but Fortune
has denied you the leisure to acquire it; yet, whenever you could
steal a moment from public affairs, you sought the conversation of
wise men; and I have remarked that your memory often served you
instead of books. It is therefore unnecessary to invite you to do what
you have always done; but, as we can not retain all we hear or read,
it may be useful to furnish your mind with some maxims that may best
serve to arm you against the assaults of misfortune. The vulgar, and
even philosophers, have decided that adverse fortune was most
difficult to sustain. For my own part I am of a different opinion, and
believe it more easy to support adversity than prosperity; and that
fortune is more treacherous and dangerous when she caresses than when
she dismays. Experience has taught me this, not books or arguments. I
have seen many persons sustain great losses, poverty, exile, tortures,
death, and even disorders that were worse than death with courage; but
I have seen none whose heads have not been turned by power, riches,
and honors. How often have we beheld those overthrown by good fortune
who could never be shaken by bad! This made me wish to learn how to
support a great fortune. You know the short time this work has taken.
I have been less attentive to what might shine than to what might be
useful on this subject. Truth and virtue are the wealth of all men;
and shall I not discourse on these with my dear Azon? I would prepare
for you, as in a little portable box, a friendly antidote against the
poison of good and bad fortune. The one requires a rein to repress the
sallies of a transported soul; the other a consolation to fortify the
overwhelmed and afflicted spirit.
Nature gave you, my friend, the heart of a king, but she gave you not
a kingdom, of which therefore Fortune could not deprive you. But I
doubt whether our ages can furnish an example of worse or better
treatment from her than yourself. In the first part of your life you
were blest with an admirable constitution and astonishing health and
vigor: some years after we beheld you thrice abandoned by the
physicians, who despaired of your life. The heavenly Physician, who
was your sole resource, restored your health, but not your former
strength. You were then called iron-footed, for your singular force
and agility; you are now bent, and lean upon the shoulders of those
whom you formerly supported. Your country beheld you one day its
governor, the next an exile. Princes disputed for your friendship, and
afterward conspired your ruin. You lost by death the greatest part of
your friends; the rest, according to custom, deserted you in calamity.
To these misfortunes was added a violent disease, which attacked you
when destitute of all succors, at a distance from your country and
family, in a strange land, invested by the troops of your enemies; so
that those two or three friends whom fortune had left you could not
come near to relieve you. In a word, you have experienced every
hardship but imprisonment and death. But what do I say? You have felt
all the horrors of the former, when your faithful wife and children
were shut up by your enemies; and even death followed you, and took
one of those children, for whose life you would willingly have
sacrificed your own.
In you have been united the fortunes of Pompey and Marius; but you
were neither arrogant in prosperity as the one, nor discouraged in
adversity as the other. You have supported both in a manner that has
made you loved by your friends and admired by your enemies. There is a
peculiar charm in the serene and tranquil air of virtue, which
enlightens all around it, in the midst of the darkest scenes and the
greatest calamities. My ancient friendship for you has caused me to
quit everything for you to perform a work, in which, as in a glass,
you may adjust and prepare your soul for all events; and be able to
say, as Æneas did to the Sibyl, "Nothing of this is new to me; I have
foreseen, and am prepared for it all." I am sensible that, in the
disorders of the mind, as well as those of the body, discourses are
not thought the most efficacious remedies; but I am persuaded also
that the malady of the soul ought to be cured by spiritual
application.
If we see a friend in distress, and give him all the consolation we
are able, we perform the duties of friendship, which pays more
attention to the disposition of the heart than the value of the gift.
A small present may be the testimony of a great love. There is no good
I do not wish you, and this is all I can offer toward it. I wish this
little treatise may be of use to you.