; vain sometimes, but always
vexations. The smallest and slightest impediments are the most piercing:
and as little letters most tire the eyes, so do little affairs most
disturb us. The rout of little ills more offend than one, how great
soever. By how much domestic thorns are numerous and slight, by so much
they prick deeper and without warning, easily surprising us when least we
suspect them.

[Now Homer shews us clearly enough how surprise gives the advantage;
who represents Ulysses weeping at the death of his dog; and not
weeping at the tears of his mother; the first accident, trivial as
it was, got the better of him, coming upon him quite unexpectedly;
he sustained the second, though more potent, because he was prepared
for it. 'Tis light occasions that humble our lives. ]

I am no philosopher; evils oppress me according to their weight, and they
weigh as much according to the form as the matter, and very often more.
If I have therein more perspicacity than the vulgar, I have also more
patience; in short, they weigh with me, if they do not hurt me. Life is
a tender thing, and easily molested. Since my age has made me grow more
pensive and morose,

"Nemo enim resistit sibi, cum caeperit impelli,"

["For no man resists himself when he has begun to be driven
forward."--Seneca, Ep., 13.]

for the most trivial cause imaginable, I irritate that humour, which
afterwards nourishes and exasperates itself of its own motion; attracting
and heaping up matter upon matter whereon to feed:

"Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat:"

["The ever falling drop hollows out a stone."--Lucretius, i. 314.]

these continual tricklings consume and ulcerate me. Ordinary
inconveniences are never light; they are continual and inseparable,
especially when they spring from the members of a family, continual and
inseparable. When I consider my affairs at distance and in gross, I
find, because perhaps my memory is none of the best, that they have gone
on hitherto improving beyond my reason or expectation; my revenue seems
greater than it is; its prosperity betrays me: but when I pry more
narrowly into the business, and see how all things go:

"Tum vero in curas animum diducimus omnes;"

["Indeed we lead the mind into all sorts of cares."
--AEneid, v. 720.]

I have a thousand things to desire and to fear. To give them quite over,