fragia meditare . . .
ut nullo sis malo tiro."

["To meditate upon banishments, tortures, wars, diseases, and
shipwrecks, that thou mayest not be a novice in any disaster."
--Seneca, Ep., 91, 107.]

What good will this curiosity do us, to anticipate all the inconveniences
of human nature, and to prepare ourselves with so much trouble against
things which, peradventure, will never befall us?

"Parem passis tristitiam facit, pati posse;"

["It troubles men as much that they may possibly suffer,
as if they really did suffer."--Idem, ibid., 74.]

not only the blow, but the wind of the blow strikes us: or, like
phrenetic people--for certainly it is a phrensy--to go immediately and
whip yourself, because it may so fall out that Fortune may one day make
you undergo it; and to put on your furred gown at Midsummer, because you
will stand in need of it at Christmas! Throw yourselves, say they, into
the experience of all the evils, the most extreme evils that can possibly
befall you, and so be assured of them. On the contrary, the most easy
and most natural way would be to banish even the thoughts of them; they
will not come soon enough; their true being will not continue with us
long enough; our mind must lengthen and extend them; we must incorporate
them in us beforehand, and there entertain them, as if they would not
otherwise sufficiently press upon our senses. "We shall find them heavy
enough when they come," says one of our masters, of none of the tender
sects, but of the most severe; "in the meantime, favour thyself; believe
what pleases thee best; what good will it do thee to anticipate thy ill
fortune, to lose the present for fear of the future: and to make thyself
miserable now, because thou art to be so in time?" These are his words.
Science, indeed, does us one good office in instructing us exactly as to
the dimensions of evils,

"Curis acuens mortalia corda!"

["Probing mortal hearts with cares."--Virgil, Georg., i. 23.]

'Twere pity that any part of their greatness should escape our sense and
knowledge.

'Tis certain that for the most part the preparation for death has
administered more torment than the thing itself. It was of old truly
said, and by a very judicious author:

"Minus afficit sensus fatigatio, quam cogitatio."

["Suffering itself less afflicts the senses than the apprehension
of suffer