“Pejus vexabar, quam ut periculum mihi succurreret;”

          ["I was too ill to think of danger.” (Or the reverse:)
          “I was too frightened to be ill.”—­Seneca, Ep., 53. 2]

I was never afraid upon the water, nor indeed in any other peril (and I have had enough before my eyes that would have sufficed, if death be one), so as to be astounded to lose my judgment.  Fear springs sometimes as much from want of judgment as from want of courage.  All the dangers I have been in I have looked upon without winking, with an open, sound, and entire sight; and, indeed, a man must have courage to fear.  It formerly served me better than other help, so to order and regulate my retreat, that it was, if not without fear, nevertheless without affright and astonishment; it was agitated, indeed, but not amazed or stupefied.  Great souls go yet much farther, and present to us flights, not only steady and temperate, but moreover lofty.  Let us make a relation of that which Alcibiades reports of Socrates, his fellow in arms:  “I found him,” says he, “after the rout of our army, him and Lachez, last among those who fled, and considered him at my leisure and in security, for I was mounted on a good horse, and he on foot, as he had fought.  I took notice, in the first place, how much judgment and resolution he showed, in comparison of Lachez, and then the bravery of his march, nothing different from his ordinary gait; his sight firm and regular, considering and judging what passed about him, looking one while upon those, and then upon others, friends and enemies, after such a manner as encouraged those, and signified to the others that he would sell his life dear to any one who should attempt to take it from him, and so they came off; for people are not willing to attack such kind of men, but pursue those they see are in a fright.”  That is the testimony of this great captain, which teaches us, what we every day experience, that nothing so much throws us into dangers as an inconsiderate eagerness of getting ourselves clear of them: 

     “Quo timoris minus est, eo minus ferme periculi est.”

     ["When there is least fear, there is for the most part least
     danger.”—­Livy, xxii. 5.]

Our people are to blame who say that such an one is afraid of death, when they would express that he thinks of it and foresees it:  foresight is equally convenient in what concerns us, whether good or ill.  To consider and judge of danger is, in some sort, the reverse to being astounded.  I do not find myself strong enough to sustain the force and impetuosity of this passion of fear, nor of any other vehement passion whatever:  if I was once conquered and beaten down by it, I should never rise again very sound.  Whoever should once make my soul lose her footing, would never set her upright again:  she retastes and researches herself too profoundly, and too much to the quick, and therefore would never