This is a great impediment to the tranquillity of the
mind. But that which is its more sensible disturbance is
this, that as flies upon a mirror easily slide down the
smooth and polished parts of it, but stick to those which are
rugged and uneven and fall into its flaws, so men let what
is cheerful and pleasant flow from them, and dwell only
upon sad melancholy remembrances. Nay, as those of
Olynthus carry beetles into a certain place, which from the
destruction of them is called their slaughter-house, where,
all passages being stopped against their escape, they are
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killed by the weariness of perpetual flying about; so when
men have once fallen upon the memory of their former
sorrows, no consolation can take them off from the mournful theme. But as in a landscape we draw the most
beautiful colors, so we ought to fill the prospect of our
minds with the most agreeable and sprightly images; that,
if we cannot utterly abolish those which are dark and unpleasant, we may at least obscure them by more gay and
lively representations. For as the strings of a lute or bow,
so is the harmony of the world alternately tightened and
relaxed by vicissitude and change; and in human affairs
there is nothing that is unmixed, nothing that is unallied. But as in music there are some sounds which are
flat and some sharp, and in grammar some letters that are
vocal and some mute, but neither the man of concord nor
syntax doth industriously decline one sort, but with the
fineness of his art mixeth them together; so in things in
this world which carry a direct opposition in their nature
one to another,—when, as Euripides expresseth it,
The good things with the evil still are joined,
And in strict union mutually combined;
The chequered work doth beautiful appear,
For what is sweet allays the more severe;—
yet we ought not to be discouraged or have any despondencies. But in this case let us imitate the musicians, who
drown the harsh cadences with others that more caress
the ear; so, by tempering our adverse fortune with what
is more prosperous, let us render our lives pleasant and of
an equal tone. For that is not true which Menander tells
us:—
Soon as an infant doth salute the day,
A genius his first cryings doth obey,
And to his charge comes hastily away;
The daemon doth assist the tender lad,
Shows him what's good, and saves him from the bad.
But the opinion of Empedocles deserves more our approbation, who saith that, as soon as any one is born, he is
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carefully taken up and governed by two guardian spirits.
‘There were Chthonia and far-seeing Heliope, and bloody
Deris and grave-faced Harmonia, Kallisto and Aeschra,
Thoösa and Denaea, with lovely Nemertes and black-fruited Asaphaea.’
