worth any one
of them. For this, indeed, I hold myself responsible; if I get in my own
way; if there be any vanity and defect in my writings which I do not of
myself perceive nor can discern, when pointed out to me by another; for
many faults escape our eye, but the infirmity of judgment consists in not
being able to discern them, when by another laid open to us. Knowledge
and truth may be in us without judgment, and judgment also without them;
but the confession of ignorance is one of the finest and surest
testimonies of judgment that I know. I have no other officer to put my
writings in rank and file, but only fortune. As things come into my
head, I heap them one upon another; sometimes they advance in whole
bodies, sometimes in single file. I would that every one should see my
natural and ordinary pace, irregular as it is; I suffer myself to jog on
at my own rate. Neither are these subjects which a man is not permitted
to be ignorant in, or casually and at a venture, to discourse of. I
could wish to have a more perfect knowledge of things, but I will not buy
it so dear as it costs. My design is to pass over easily, and not
laboriously, the remainder of my life; there is nothing that I will
cudgel my brains about; no, not even knowledge, of what value soever.

I seek, in the reading of books, only to please myself by an honest
diversion; or, if I study, 'tis for no other science than what treats of
the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die and how to live
well.

"Has meus ad metas sudet oportet equus."

["My horse must work according to my step."
--Propertius, iv.]

I do not bite my nails about the difficulties I meet with in my reading;
after a charge or two, I give them over. Should I insist upon them, I
should both lose myself and time; for I have an impatient understanding,
that must be satisfied at first: what I do not discern at once is by
persistence rendered more obscure. I do nothing without gaiety;
continuation and a too obstinate endeavour, darkens, stupefies, and tires
my judgment. My sight is confounded and dissipated with poring; I must
withdraw it, and refer my discovery to new attempts; just as, to judge
rightly of the lustre of scarlet, we are taught to pass the eye lightly
over it, and again to run it over at several sudden and reiterated
glances. If one book do not please me, I take another; and I never
meddle with any, but at s