When absent from home, I divest myself of all these thoughts, and should be less concerned for the ruin of a tower, than I am, when present, at the fall of a tile.  My mind is easily composed at distance, but suffers as much as that of the meanest peasant when I am at home; the reins of my bridle being wrongly put on, or a strap flapping against my leg, will keep me out of humour a day together.  I raise my courage, well enough against inconveniences:  lift up my eyes I cannot: 

“Sensus, o superi, sensus.”

["The senses, O ye gods, the senses.”]

I am at home responsible for whatever goes amiss.  Few masters (I speak of those of medium condition such as mine), and if there be any such, they are more happy, can rely so much upon another, but that the greatest part of the burden will lie upon their own shoulders.  This takes much from my grace in entertaining visitors, so that I have, peradventure, detained some rather out of expectation of a good dinner, than by my own behaviour; and lose much of the pleasure I ought to reap at my own house from the visitation and assembling of my friends.  The most ridiculous carriage of a gentleman in his own house, is to see him bustling about the business of the place, whispering one servant, and looking an angry look at another:  it ought insensibly to slide along, and to represent an ordinary current; and I think it unhandsome to talk much to our guests of their entertainment, whether by way of bragging or excuse.  I love order and cleanliness—­

                         “Et cantharus et lanx
                         Ostendunt mihi me”—­

          ["The dishes and the glasses shew me my own reflection.” 
          —­Horace, Ep., i. 5, 23]

more than abundance; and at home have an exact regard to necessity, little to outward show.  If a footman falls to cuffs at another man’s house, or stumble and throw a dish before him as he is carrying it up, you only laugh and make a jest on’t; you sleep whilst the master of the house is arranging a bill of fare with his steward for your morrow’s entertainment.  I speak according as I do myself; quite appreciating, nevertheless, good husbandry in general, and how pleasant quiet and prosperous household management, carried regularly on, is to some natures; and not wishing to fasten my own errors and inconveniences to the thing; nor to give Plato the lie, who looks upon it as the most pleasant employment to every one to do his particular affairs without wrong to another.

When I travel I have nothing to care for but myself, and the laying out my money; which is disposed of by one single precept; too many things are required to the raking it together; in that I understand nothing; in spending, I understand a little, and how to give some show to my expense, which is indeed its principal use; but I rely too ambitiously upon it, which renders it unequal and difform, and, moreover, immoderate in