ise finds
much comfort and content in the hope that animates him. Thus the
fatigues of hunting discourage not the hunters, because they hope to take
the game they pursue. And yet what they take, though they think it a
reward for all their toil, is certainly of very little value. Ought not
they, then, who labour to gain the friendship of good men, or to overcome
their enemies, or to render themselves capable of governing their
families, and of serving their country, ought not these, I say, joyfully
to undertake the trouble, and to rest content, conscious of the inward
approbation of their own minds, and the regard and esteem of the
virtuous? And to convince you that it is good to impose labours on
ourselves, it is a maxim among those who instruct youth that the
exercises which are easily performed at the first attempt, and which we
immediately take delight in, are not capable to form the body to that
vigour and strength that is requisite in great undertakings, nor of
imprinting in the soul any considerable knowledge: but that those which
require patience, application, labour, and assiduity, prepare the way to
illustrious actions and great achievements. This is the opinion of good
judges, and of Hesiod in particular, who says somewhere--

'To Vice, in crowded ranks, the course we steer,
The road is smooth, and her abode is near;
But Virtue's heights are reached with sweat and pain,
For thus did the immortal powers ordain.
A long and rough ascent leads to her gate,
Nor, till the summit's gained, doth toil abate.'

And to the same purpose Epicharmus:--

"The gods confer their blessings at the price
Of labour--."

Who remarks in another place--

"Thou son of sloth, avoid the charms of ease,
Lest pain succeed--."

"Of the same opinion is Prodicus, in the book he has written of the life
of Hercules, where Virtue and Pleasure make their court to that hero
under the appearance of two beautiful women. His words, as near as I can
remember, are as follows:--

"'When Hercules,' says the moralist, 'had arrived at that part of his
youth in which young men commonly choose for themselves, and show, by the
result of their choice, whether they will, through the succeeding stages
of their lives, enter into and walk in the path of virtue or that of
vice, he went out into a solitary place fit for contemplation, there to
consider with himself which of those two paths he should pursue.

"'As he w