ain,
"That it was too late." A man must deny opportunity to every inopportune
action. The ancient Gauls' looked upon it as a very horrid thing for a
man to have society with a woman before he was twenty years of age, and
strictly recommended to the men who designed themselves for war the
keeping their virginity till well grown in years, forasmuch as courage is
abated and diverted by intercourse with women:

"Ma, or congiunto a giovinetta sposa,
E lieto omai de' figli, era invilito
Negli affetti di padre et di marito."

["Now, married to a young wife and happy in children, he was
demoralised by his love as father and husband."
--Tasso, Gierus., x. 39.]

Muley Hassam, king of Tunis, he whom the Emperor Charles V. restored to
his kingdom, reproached the memory of his father Mahomet with the
frequentation of women, styling him loose, effeminate, and a getter of
children.--[Of whom he had thirty-four.]--The Greek history observes of
Iccus the Tarentine, of Chryso, Astyllus, Diopompos, and others, that to
keep their bodies in order for the Olympic games and such like exercises,
they denied themselves during that preparation all commerce with Venus.
In a certain country of the Spanish Indies men were not permitted to
marry till after forty age, and yet the girls were allowed at ten.
'Tis not time for a gentleman of thirty years old to give place to his
son who is twenty; he is himself in a condition to serve both in the
expeditions of war and in the court of his prince; has need of all his
appurtenances; and yet, doubtless, he ought to surrender a share, but not
so great an one as to forget himself for others; and for such an one the
answer that fathers have ordinarily in their mouths, "I will not put off
my clothes, before I go to bed," serves well.

But a father worn out with age and infirmities, and deprived by weakness
and want of health of the common society of men, wrongs himself and his
to amass a great heap of treasure. He has lived long enough, if he be
wise, to have a mind to strip himself to go to bed, not to his very
shirt, I confess, but to that and a good, warm dressing-gown; the
remaining pomps, of which he has no further use, he ought voluntarily to
surrender to those, to whom by the order of nature they belong. 'Tis
reason he should refer the use of those things to them, seeing that
nature has reduced him to such a state that he cannot enjoy th