“I inhabit a retired corner of the city towards the west.  Their ancient devotion attracts the people every Sunday to the church of St. Ambrosio, near which I dwell.  During the rest of the week, this quarter is a desert.

“Fortune has changed nothing in my nourishment, or my hours of sleep, except that I retrench as much as possible from indulgence in either.  I lie in bed for no other purpose than to sleep, unless I am ill.  I hasten from bed as soon as I am awake, and pass into my library.  This takes place about the middle of the night, save when the nights are shortest.  I grant to Nature nothing but what she imperatively demands, and which it is impossible to refuse her.

“Though I have always loved solitude and silence, I am a great gossip with my friends, which arises, perhaps, from my seeing them but rarely.  I atone for this loquacity by a year of taciturnity.  I mutely recall my parted friends by correspondence.  I resemble that class of people of whom Seneca speaks, who seize life in detail, and not by the gross.  The moment I feel the approach of summer, I take a country-house a league distant from town, where the air is extremely pure.  In such a place I am at present, and here I lead my wonted life, more free than ever from the wearisomeness of the city.  I have abundance of everything; the peasants vie with each other in bringing me fruit, fish, ducks, and all sorts of game.  There is a beautiful Carthusian monastery in my neighbourhood, where, at all hours of the day, I find the innocent pleasures which religion offers.  In this sweet retreat I feel no want but that of my ancient friends.  In these I was once rich; but death has taken away some of them, and absence robs me of the remainder.  Though my imagination represents them, still I am not the less desirous of their real presence.  There would remain but few things for me to desire, if fortune would restore to me but two friends, such as you and Socrates.  I confess that I flattered myself a long time to have had you both with me.  But, if you persist in your rigour, I must console myself with the company of my religionists.  Their conversation, it is true, is neither witty nor profound, but it is simple and pious.  Those good priests will be of great service to me both in life and death.  I think I have now said enough about myself, and, perhaps, more than enough.  You ask me about the state of my fortune, and you wish to know whether you may believe the rumours that are abroad about my riches.  It is true that my income is increased; but so, also, proportionably, is my outlay.  I am, as I have always been, neither rich nor poor.  Riches, they say, make men poor by multiplying their wants and desires; for my part, I feel the contrary; the more I have the less I desire.  Yet, I suppose, if I possessed great riches, they would have the same effect upon me as upon other people.