ake the
first opportune time of eating, and leave to almanac-makers hopes and
prognostics. The utmost fruit of my health is pleasure; let us take hold
of the present and known. I avoid the invariable in these laws of
fasting; he who would have one form serve him, let him avoid the
continuing it; we harden ourselves in it; our strength is there stupefied
and laid asleep; six months after, you shall find your stomach so inured
to it, that all you have got is the loss of your liberty of doing
otherwise but to your prejudice.

I never keep my legs and thighs warmer in winter than in summer; one
simple pair of silk stockings is all. I have suffered myself, for the
relief of my colds, to keep my head warmer, and my belly upon the account
of my colic: my diseases in a few days habituate themselves thereto, and
disdained my ordinary provisions: we soon get from a coif to a kerchief
over it, from a simple cap to a quilted hat; the trimmings of the doublet
must not merely serve for ornament: there must be added a hare's skin or
a vulture's skin, and a cap under the hat: follow this gradation, and you
will go a very fine way to work. I will do nothing of the sort, and
would willingly leave off what I have begun. If you fall into any new
inconvenience, all this is labour lost; you are accustomed to it; seek
out some other. Thus do they destroy themselves who submit to be
pestered with these enforced and superstitious rules; they must add
something more, and something more after that; there is no end on't.

For what concerns our affairs and pleasures, it is much more commodious,
as the ancients did, to lose one's dinner, and defer making good cheer
till the hour of retirement and repose, without breaking up a day; and so
was I formerly used to do. As to health, I since by experience find, on
the contrary, that it is better to dine, and that the digestion is better
while awake. I am not very used to be thirsty, either well or sick; my
mouth is, indeed, apt to be dry, but without thirst; and commonly I never
drink but with thirst that is created by eating, and far on in the meal;
I drink pretty well for a man of my pitch: in summer, and at a relishing
meal, I do not only exceed the limits of Augustus, who drank but thrice
precisely; but not to offend Democritus rule, who forbade that men should
stop at four times as an unlucky number, I proceed at need to the fifth
glass, about three half-pints; for the little glasses are my f