“Quarto.  Luxurious habits.  Shut up in your attic, you insensibly surround yourself with a thousand effeminate indulgences.  You must have list for your door, a blind for your window, a carpet for your feet, an easy-chair stuffed with wool for your back, your fire lit at the first sign of cold, and a shade to your lamp; and thanks to all these precautions, the least draught makes you catch cold, common chairs give you no rest, and you must wear spectacles to support the light of day.  You have thought you were acquiring comforts, and you have only contracted infirmities.

“Quinto”

“Ah! enough, enough, doctor!” cried I.  “Pray, do not carry your examination farther; do not attach a sense of remorse to each of my pleasures.”

The old doctor rubbed his nose with his snuffbox.

“You see,” said he, more gently, and rising at the same time, “you would escape from the truth.  You shrink from inquiry—­a proof that you are guilty.  ‘Habemus confitentem reum’!  But at least, my friend, do not go on laying the blame on Time, like an old woman.”

Thereupon he again felt my pulse, and took his leave, declaring that his function was at an end, and that the rest depended upon myself.

When the doctor was gone, I set about reflecting upon what he had said.

Although his words were too sweeping, they were not the less true in the main.  How often we accuse chance of an illness, the origin of which we should seek in ourselves!  Perhaps it would have been wiser to let him finish the examination he had begun.

But is there not another of more importance—­that which concerns the health of the soul?  Am I so sure of having neglected no means of preserving that during the year which is now ending?  Have I, as one of God’s soldiers upon earth, kept my courage and my arms efficient?  Shall I be ready for the great review of souls which must pass before Him who is in the dark valley of Jehoshaphat?

Darest thou examine thyself, O my soul! and see how often thou hast erred?

First, thou hast erred through pride! for I have not duly valued the lowly.  I have drunk too deeply of the intoxicating wines of genius, and have found no relish in pure water.  I have disdained those words which had no other beauty than their sincerity; I have ceased to love men solely because they are men—­I have loved them for their endowments; I have contracted the world within the narrow compass of a pantheon, and my sympathy has been awakened by admiration only.  The vulgar crowd, which I ought to have followed with a friendly eye because it is composed of my brothers in hope or grief, I have let pass by with as much indifference as if it were a flock of sheep.  I am indignant with him who rolls in riches and despises the man poor in worldly wealth; and yet, vain of my trifling knowledge, I despise him who is poor in mind—­I scorn the poverty of intellect as others do that of dress; I take credit for a gift which I did not bestow on myself, and turn the favor of fortune into a weapon with which to attack others.