o what I understand in the science of benefit and
acknowledgment, which is a subtle science, and of great use, I know no
person whatever more free and less indebted than I am at this hour. What
I do owe is simply to foreign obligations and benefits; as to anything
else, no man is more absolutely clear:

"Nec sunt mihi nota potentum
Munera."

["The gifts of great men are unknown to me."--AEneid, xii. 529.]

Princes give me a great deal if they take nothing from me; and do me good
enough if they do me no harm; that's all I ask from them. O how am I
obliged to God, that he has been pleased I should immediately receive
from his bounty all I have, and specially reserved all my obligation to
himself. How earnestly do I beg of his holy compassion that I may never
owe essential thanks to any one. O happy liberty wherein I have thus far
lived. May it continue with me to the last. I endeavour to have no
express need of any one:

"In me omnis spec est mihi."

["All my hope is in myself."--Terence, Adelph., iii. 5, 9.]

'Tis what every one may do in himself, but more easily they whom God has
placed in a condition exempt from natural and urgent necessities. It is
a wretched and dangerous thing to depend upon others; we ourselves, in
whom is ever the most just and safest dependence, are not sufficiently
sure.

I have nothing mine but myself, and yet the possession is, in part,
defective and borrowed. I fortify myself both in courage, which is the
strongest assistant, and also in fortune, therein wherewith to satisfy
myself, though everything else should forsake me. Hippias of Elis not
only furnished himself with knowledge, that he might, at need, cheerfully
retire from all other company to enjoy the Muses: nor only with the
knowledge of philosophy, to teach his soul to be contented with itself,
and bravely to subsist without outward conveniences, when fate would have
it so; he was, moreover, so careful as to learn to cook, to shave
himself, to make his own clothes, his own shoes and drawers, to provide
for all his necessities in himself, and to wean himself from the
assistance of others. A man more freely and cheerfully enjoys borrowed
conveniences, when it is not an enjoyment forced and constrained by need;
and when he has, in his own will and fortune, the means to live without
them. I know myself very well; but 'tis hard for me to imagine any so