CHAPTER V.

By how much profitable thoughts are more full and solid, by so much are they also more cumbersome and heavy:  vice, death, poverty, diseases, are grave and grievous subjects.  A man should have his soul instructed in the means to sustain and to contend with evils, and in the rules of living and believing well:  and often rouse it up, and exercise it in this noble study; but in an ordinary soul it must be by intervals and with moderation; it will otherwise grow besotted if continually intent upon it.  I found it necessary, when I was young, to put myself in mind and solicit myself to keep me to my duty; gaiety and health do not, they say, so well agree with those grave and serious meditations:  I am at present in another state:  the conditions of age but too much put me in mind, urge me to wisdom, and preach to me.  From the excess of sprightliness I am fallen into that of severity, which is much more troublesome; and for that reason I now and then suffer myself purposely a little to run into disorder, and occupy my mind in wanton and youthful thoughts, wherewith it diverts itself.  I am of late but too reserved, too heavy, and too ripe; years every day read to me lectures of coldness and temperance.  This body of mine avoids disorder and dreads it; ’tis now my body’s turn to guide my mind towards reformation; it governs, in turn, and more rudely and imperiously than the other; it lets me not an hour alone, sleeping or waking, but is always preaching to me death, patience, and repentance.  I now defend myself from temperance, as I have formerly done from pleasure; it draws me too much back, and even to stupidity.  Now I will be master of myself, to all intents and purposes; wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly.  Therefore, lest I should wither, dry up, and overcharge myself with prudence, in the intervals and truces my infirmities allow me: 

“Mens intenta suis ne seit usque malis.”

["That my mind may not eternally be intent upon my ills.” 
—­Ovid., Trist., iv. i, 4.]

I gently turn aside, and avert my eyes from the stormy and cloudy sky I have before me, which, thanks be to God, I regard without fear, but not without meditation and study, and amuse myself in the remembrance of my better years: 

                          “Animus quo perdidit, optat,
               Atque in praeterita se totus imagine versat.”

["The mind wishes to have what it has lost, and throws itself
wholly into memories of the past.”—­Petronius, c. 128.]

Let childhood look forward and age backward; was not this the signification of Janus’ double face?  Let years draw me along if they will, but it shall be backward; as long as my eyes can discern the pleasant season expired, I shall now and then turn them that way; though it escape from my blood and veins, I shall not, however, root the image of it out of my memory: