For it is not so much the desire of life as the fear
of death, which makes the fool have such a dependence
upon the body, and stick so fast to its embraces. So Ulysses held fast by the fig-tree, dreading Charybdis that lay
under him,—
Where the wind would not suffer him to stay,
Nor would it serve to carry him away,
1
so that on this side was but a slender support, and there
was inevitable danger on the other. But he who considers
the nature of the soul, and that death will transport it to a
condition either far better or not much worse than what
he now enjoys, hath contempt of death to sustain him as
he travelleth on in this pilgrimage of his life, no small
viaticum towards tranquillity of mind. For as to one that
can live pleasantly so long as virtue and the better part of
mankind are predominant, and can depart fearlessly so
soon as hostile and unnatural principles prevail, saying to
himself,—
Fate shall release me when I please myself;
2
what in the whole scope of the creation can be thought of
that can raise a tumult in such a man, or give him the
least molestation? Certainly, he that threw out that brave
defiance to Fortune in these words, ‘I have prevented thee,
O Fortune, and have shut up all thy avenues to me,’ did
not speak it confiding in the strength of walls or bars, or
the security of keys; but it was an effect of his learning,
and the challenge was a dictate of his reason. And these
heights of resolution any men may attain to if they are
willing; and we ought not to distrust, or despair of arriving
[p. 164]
to the courage of saying the same things. Therefore
we should not only admire, but be kindled with emulation,
and think ourselves touched with the impulse of a divine
instinct, which piques us on to the trial of ourselves in
matters of less importance; that thereby we may find how
our tempers bear to be qualified for greater, and so may
not incuriously decline that inspection we ought to have
over ourselves, or take refuge in the saying, Perchance
nothing will be more difficult than this. For the luxurious
thinker, who withdraws himself from severe reflections and
is conversant about no objects but what are easy and delectable, emasculates his understanding and contracts a
softness of spirit; but he that makes grief, sickness, and
banishment the subjects of his meditation, who composeth
his mind sedately, and poiseth himself with reason to sustain the burthen, will find that those things are vain, empty,
and false which appear so grievous and terrible to the
vulgar, as his own reasonings will make out to him in
every particular.
