nowledge 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 such times as I am weary of doing nothing.
I care not much for new ones, because the old seem fuller and stronger;
neither do I converse much with Greek authors, because my judgment cannot
do its work with imperfect intelligence of the material.

Amongst books that are simply pleasant, of the moderns, Boccaccio's
Decameron, Rabelais, and the Basia of Johannes Secundus (if those may be
ranged under the title) are worth reading for amusement. As to the
Amadis, and such kind of stuff, they had not the credit of arresting even
my childhood. And I will, moreover, say, whether boldly or rashly, that
this old, heavy soul of mine is now no longer tickled with Ariosto, no,
nor with the worthy Ovid; his facility and inventions, with which I was
formerly so ravished, are now of no more relish, and I can hardly have
the patience to read them. I speak my opinion freely of all things, even
of those that, perhaps, exceed my capacity, and that I do not conceive to
be, in any wise, under my jurisdiction. And, accordingly, the judgment I
deliver