omni compage soluta,
Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium."

["Like one who, desiring to stay an impending ruin, places various
props against it, till, in a short time, the house, the props, and
all, giving way, fall together."--Pseudo-Gallus, i. 171.]

We must learn to suffer what we cannot evade; our life, like the harmony
of the world, is composed of contrary things--of diverse tones, sweet and
harsh, sharp and flat, sprightly and solemn: the musician who should only
affect some of these, what would he be able to do? he must know how to
make use of them all, and to mix them; and so we should mingle the goods
and evils which are consubstantial with our life; our being cannot
subsist without this mixture, and the one part is no less necessary to it
than the other. To attempt to combat natural necessity, is to represent
the folly of Ctesiphon, who undertook to kick with his mule.--[Plutarch,
How to restrain Anger, c. 8.]

I consult little about the alterations I feel: for these doctors take
advantage; when they have you at their mercy, they surfeit your ears with
their prognostics; and formerly surprising me, weakened with sickness,
injuriously handled me with their dogmas and magisterial fopperies--one
while menacing me with great pains, and another with approaching death.
Hereby I was indeed moved and shaken, but not subdued nor jostled from my
place; and though my judgment was neither altered nor distracted, yet it
was at least disturbed: 'tis always agitation and combat.

Now, I use my imagination as gently as I can, and would discharge it, if
I could, of all trouble and contest; a man must assist, flatter, and
deceive it, if he can; my mind is fit for that office; it needs no
appearances throughout: could it persuade as it preaches, it would
successfully relieve me. Will you have an example? It tells me: "that
'tis for my good to have the stone: that the structure of my age must
naturally suffer some decay, and it is now time it should begin to
disjoin and to confess a breach; 'tis a common necessity, and there is
nothing in it either miraculous or new; I therein pay what is due to old
age, and I cannot expect a better bargain; that society ought to comfort
me, being fallen into the most common infirmity of my age; I see
everywhere men tormented with the same disease, and am honoured by the
fellowship, forasmuch as men of the best quality are most frequently
afflicted with it: 'tis