_A letter to Mr_. _S_. _L._
I AM glad that you approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself
from all tumult and business of the world and consecrating the little
rest of my time to those studies to which nature had so motherly inclined
me, and from which fortune like a step-mother has so long detained me.
But nevertheless, you say—which But is ærugo mera, a rust which spoils
the good metal it grows upon. But, you say, you would advise me not to
precipitate that resolution, but to stay a while longer with patience and
complaisance, till I had gotten such an estate as might afford me,
according to the saying of that person whom you and I love very much, and
would believe as soon as another man, _cum dignitate otium_. This were
excellent advice to Joshua, who could bid the sun stay too. But there’s
no fooling with life when it is once turned beyond forty. The seeking
for a fortune then is but a desperate after game, it is a hundred to one
if a man fling two sixes and recover all; especially if his hand be no
luckier than mine. There is some help for all the defects of fortune,
for if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his
remedy by cutting of them shorter. Epicurus writes a letter to
Idomeneus, who was then a very powerful, wealthy, and it seems bountiful
person, to recommend to him, who had made so many men rich, one
Pythocles, a friend of his, whom he desired to be made a rich man too:
But I entreat you that you would not do it just the same way as you have
done to many less deserving persons, but in the most gentlemanly manner
of obliging him, which is not to add anything to his estate, but to take
something from his desires. The sum of this is, that for the uncertain
hopes of some conveniences we ought not to defer the execution of a work
that is necessary, especially when the use of those things which we would
stay for may otherwise be supplied, but the loss of time never recovered.
Nay, further yet, though we were sure to obtain all that we had a mind
to, though we were sure of getting never so much by continuing the game,
yet when the light of life is so near going out, and ought to be so
precious, _Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle_, the play is not worth the
expense of the candle. After having been long tossed in a tempest, if
our masts be standing, and we have still sail and tackling enough to
carry us to our port, it is no matter for the want of streamers and
topgallants; _utere velis totes pande sinus_. A gentleman in our late
civil wars, when his quarters were beaten up by the enemy, was taken
prisoner and lost his life afterwards, only by staying to put on a band
and adjust his periwig. He would escape like a person of quality, or not
at all, and died the noble martyr of ceremony and gentility. I think
your counsel of _festina lente_ is as ill to a man who is flying from the
world, as it would have been to that unfortunate well-bred gentleman, who
was so cautious as not to fly undecently from his enemies, and therefore
I prefer Horace’s advice before yours.
—_Sapere ande_; _incipe_.
Begin: the getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
Varro teaches us that Latin proverb, _Portam itineri longissimam esse_.
But to return to Horace,
—_Sapere aude_;
_Incipe_. _Virendi qui recte prorogat horam_
_Rusticus expectat dum labitur amnis_; _at ille_
_Labitur_, _et labetur is omne volubilis ævum_.
Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise;
He who defers the work from day to day,
Does on a river’s bank expecting stay,
Till the whole stream which stopped him should be gone,
That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.
Cæsar (the man of expedition above all others) was so far from this
folly, that whensoever in a journey he was to cross any river, he never
went one foot out of his way for a bridge, or a ford, or a ferry; but
flung himself into it immediately, and swam over; and this is the course
we ought to imitate if we meet with any stops in our way to happiness.
Stay till the waters are low, stay till some boats come by to transport
you, stay till a bridge be built for you; you had even as good stay till
the river be quite past. Persius (who, you used to say, you do not know
whether he be a good poet or no, because you cannot understand him, and
whom, therefore, I say, I know to be not a good poet) has an odd
expression of these procrastinations, which, methinks, is full of fancy.
_Jam cras hesterum consumpsimus_, _ecce aliud cras egerit hos annos_.
Our yesterday’s to-morrow now is gone,
And still a new to-morrow does come on;
We by to-morrows draw up all our store,
Till the exhausted well can yield no more.
And now, I think, I am even with you, for your _otium cum dignitate_ and
_festina lente_, and three or four other more of your new Latin
sentences: if I should draw upon you all my forces out of Seneca and
Plutarch upon this subject, I should overwhelm you, but I leave those as
_triarii_ for your next charges. I shall only give you now a light
skirmish out of an epigrammatist, your special good friend, and so,
_vale_.