it. I ponder with
myself of content; I do not skim over, but sound it; and I bend my
reason, now grown perverse and peevish, to entertain it. Do I find
myself in any calm composedness? is there any pleasure that tickles me?
I do not suffer it to dally with my senses only; I associate my soul to
it too: not there to engage itself, but therein to take delight; not
there to lose itself, but to be present there; and I employ it, on its
part, to view itself in this prosperous state, to weigh and appreciate
its happiness and to amplify it. It reckons how much it stands indebted
to God that its conscience and the intestine passions are in repose; that
it has the body in its natural disposition, orderly and competently
enjoying the soft and soothing functions by which He, of His grace is
pleased to compensate the sufferings wherewith His justice at His good
pleasure chastises us. It reflects how great a benefit it is to be so
protected, that which way soever it turns its eye the heavens are calm
around it. No desire, no fear, no doubt, troubles the air; no
difficulty, past, present, or to, come, that its imagination may not pass
over without offence. This consideration takes great lustre from the
comparison of different conditions. So it is that I present to my
thought, in a thousand aspects, those whom fortune or their own error
carries away and torments. And, again, those who, more like to me, so
negligently and incuriously receive their good fortune. Those are folks
who spend their time indeed; they pass over the present and that which
they possess, to wait on hope, and for shadows and vain images which
fancy puts before them:

"Morte obita quales fama est volitare figuras,
Aut quae sopitos deludunt somnia sensus:"

["Such forms as those which after death are reputed to hover about,
or dreams which delude the senses in sleep."--AEneid, x. 641.]

which hasten and prolong their flight, according as they are pursued.
The fruit and end of their pursuit is to pursue; as Alexander said, that
the end of his labour was to labour:

"Nil actum credens, cum quid superesset agendum."

["Thinking nothing done, if anything remained to be done.
--"Lucan, ii. 657.]

For my part then, I love life and cultivate it, such as it has pleased
God to bestow it upon us. I do not desire it should be without the
necessity of eating and drinking; and I should think it a not less
excusa