mind. Those who form their thoughts
in this manner, and abstract themselves from the world, are out of the
way of Fortune, and can look with contempt both on her favours and her
frowns. At the same time, they who separate themselves from the
immediate commerce with the busy part of mankind, are still beneficial
to them, while by their studies and writings they recommend to them the
small value which ought to be put upon what they pursue with so much
labour and disquiet. Whilst such men are thought the most idle, they are
the most usefully employed. They have all things, both human and divine,
under consideration. To be perfectly free from the insults of fortune,
we should arm ourselves with their reflections. We should learn, that
none but intellectual possessions are what we can properly call our own.
All things from without are but borrowed. What Fortune gives us, is not
ours; and whatever she gives, she can take away.

It is a common imputation to Seneca, that though he declaimed with so
much strength of reason, and a stoical contempt of riches and power, he
was at the same time one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome. I
know no instance of his being insolent in that fortune, and can
therefore read his thoughts on those subjects with the more deference. I
will not give philosophy so poor a look, as to say it cannot live in
courts; but I am of opinion, that it is there in the greatest eminence,
when amidst the affluence of all the world can bestow, and the addresses
of a crowd who follow him for that reason, a man can think both of
himself and those about him abstracted from these circumstances. Such a
philosopher is as much above an anchorite, as a wise matron, who passes
through the world with innocence, is preferable to the nun who locks
herself up from it.

Full of these thoughts I left my lodgings, and took a walk to the Court
end of the town; and the hurry, and busy faces I met with about
Whitehall, made me form to myself ideas of the different prospects of
all I saw, from the turn and cast of their countenances. All, methought,
had the same thing in view, but prosecuted their hopes with a different
air: some showed an unbecoming eagerness, some a surly impatience, some
a winning deference, but the generality a servile complaisance.

I could not but observe, as I roved about the offices, that all who were
still but in expectation, murmured at Fortune; and all who had obtained
their wishes, immediately