ng, which must be
kept fit by some exercise, namely riding, and for which he carefully
tries to select a suitable climate. He is at times circumstantial in the
description of his ailments.[15] He has to be very careful in the matter
of his sleep; if once he wakes up, he finds it difficult to go to sleep
again, and because of that has often to lose the morning, the best time
to work and which is so dear to him. He cannot stand cold, wind and fog,
but still less overheated rooms. How he has execrated the German stoves,
which are burned nearly all the year through and made Germany almost
unbearable to him! Of his fear of illness we have spoken above. It is
not only the plague which he flees--for fear of catching cold he gives
up a journey from Louvain to Antwerp, where his friend Peter Gilles is
in mourning. Although he realizes quite well that 'often a great deal of
the disease is in the imagination', yet his own imagination leaves him
no peace. Nevertheless, when he is seriously ill he does not fear death.

His hygienics amount to temperance, cleanliness and fresh air, this last
item in moderation: he takes the vicinity of the sea to be unwholesome
and is afraid of draughts. His friend Gilles, who is ill, he advises:
'Do not take too much medicine, keep quiet and do not get angry'. Though
there is a 'Praise of Medicine' among his works, he does not think
highly of physicians and satirizes them more than once in the
_Colloquies_.

Also in his outward appearance there were certain features betraying his
delicacy. He was of medium height, well-made, of a fair complexion with
blond hair and blue eyes, a cheerful face, a very articulate mode of
speech, but a thin voice.

In the moral sphere Erasmus's delicacy is represented by his great need
of friendship and concord, his dislike of contention. With him peace and
harmony rank above all other considerations, and he confesses them to be
the guiding principles of his actions. He would, if it might be, have
all the world as a friend. 'Wittingly I discharge no one from my
friendship,' he says. And though he was sometimes capricious and
exacting towards his friends, yet a truly great friend he was: witness
the many who never forsook him, or whom he, after a temporary
estrangement, always won back--More, Peter Gilles, Fisher, Ammonius,
Budaeus, and others too numerous to mention. 'He was most constant in
keeping up friendships,' says Beatus Rhenanus, whose own attachment to
Erasm