be acquired? 'Tis far from flying evil
and pain, what the sages say, that of actions equally good, a man should
most covet to perform that wherein there is greater labour and pain.

"Non est enim hilaritate, nec lascivia, nec risu, aut joco
comite levitatis, sed saepe etiam tristes firmitate et
constantia sunt beati."

["For men are not only happy by mirth and wantonness, by laughter
and jesting, the companion of levity, but ofttimes the serious sort
reap felicity from their firmness and constancy."
--Cicero, De Finib. ii. 10.]

And for this reason it has ever been impossible to persuade our
forefathers but that the victories obtained by dint of force and the
hazard of war were not more honourable than those performed in great
security by stratagem or practice:

"Laetius est, quoties magno sibi constat honestum."

["A good deed is all the more a satisfaction by how much the more
it has cost us"--Lucan, ix. 404.]

Besides, this ought to be our comfort, that naturally, if the pain be
violent, 'tis but short; and if long, nothing violent:

"Si gravis, brevis;
Si longus, levis."

Thou wilt not feel it long if thou feelest it too much; it will either
put an end to itself or to thee; it comes to the same thing; if thou
canst not support it, it will export thee:

["Remember that the greatest pains are terminated by death; that
slighter pains have long intermissions of repose, and that we are
masters of the more moderate sort: so that, if they be tolerable,
we bear them; if not, we can go out of life, as from a theatre, when
it does not please us"--Cicero, De Finib. i. 15.]

That which makes us suffer pain with so much impatience is the not being
accustomed to repose our chiefest contentment in the soul; that we do not
enough rely upon her who is the sole and sovereign mistress of our
condition. The body, saving in the greater or less proportion, has but
one and the same bent and bias; whereas the soul is variable into all
sorts of forms; and subject to herself and to her own empire, all things
whatsoever, both the senses of the body and all other accidents: and
therefore it is that we ought to study her, to inquire into her, and to
rouse up all her powerful faculties. There is neither reason, force, nor
prescription that can anything prevail against her inclination and
c