ing
particular ways of speaking, dances, and games, to a people totally
abandoned to all sorts of execrable vices. 'Tis no time to bathe and
cleanse one's self, when one is seized by a violent fever; it was for the
Spartans alone to fall to combing and curling themselves, when they were
just upon the point of running headlong into some extreme danger of their
life.

For my part, I have that worse custom, that if my slipper go awry, I let
my shirt and my cloak do so too; I scorn to mend myself by halves.

When I am in a bad plight, I fasten upon the mischief; I abandon myself
through despair; I let myself go towards the precipice, and, as they say,
"throw the helve after the hatchet"; I am obstinate in growing worse, and
think myself no longer worth my own care; I am either well or ill
throughout. 'T is a favour to me, that the desolation of this kingdom
falls out in the desolation of my age: I better suffer that my ill be
multiplied, than if my well had been disturbed.--[That, being ill, I
should grow worse, than that, being well, I should grow ill.]--The words
I utter in mishap are words of anger: my courage sets up its bristles,
instead of letting them down; and, contrary to others, I am more devout
in good than in evil fortune, according to the precept of Xenophon, if
not according to his reason; and am more ready to turn up my eyes to
heaven to return thanks, than to crave. I am more solicitous to improve
my health, when I am well, than to restore it when I am sick;
prosperities are the same discipline and instruction to me that
adversities and rods are to others. As if good fortune were a thing
inconsistent with good conscience, men never grow good but in evil
fortune. Good fortune is to me a singular spur to modesty and
moderation: an entreaty wins, a threat checks me; favour makes me bend,
fear stiffens me.

Amongst human conditions this is common enough: to be better pleased with
foreign things than with our own, and to love innovation and change:

"Ipsa dies ideo nos grato perluit haustu,
Quod permutatis hora recurrit equis:"

["The light of day itself shines more pleasantly upon us because it
changes its horses every hour." Spoke of a water hour-glass,
adds Cotton.]

I have my share. Those who follow the other extreme, of being quite
satisfied and pleased with and in themselves, of valuing what they have
above all the rest, and of concluding no beauty