“Fructus enim ingenii et virtutis, omnisque praestantiae,
     tum maximus capitur, quum in proximum quemque confertur:” 

     ["For the greatest enjoyment of evil and virtue, and of all
     excellence, is experienced when they are conferred on some one
     nearest.”—­Cicero, De Amicil., c.]

for myself, I disclaim it; partly out of conscience (for where I see the weight that lies upon such employments, I perceive also the little means I have to supply it; and Plato, a master in all political government himself, nevertheless took care to abstain from it), and partly out of cowardice.  I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle; only-to live an excusable life, and such as may neither be a burden to myself nor to any other.

Never did any man more fully and feebly suffer himself to be governed by a third person than I should do, had I any one to whom to entrust myself.  One of my wishes at this time should be, to have a son-in-law that knew handsomely how to cherish my old age, and to rock it asleep; into whose hands I might deposit, in full sovereignty, the management and use of all my goods, that he might dispose of them as I do, and get by them what I get, provided that he on his part were truly acknowledging, and a friend.  But we live in a world where loyalty of one’s own children is unknown.

He who has the charge of my purse in his travels, has it purely and without control; he could cheat me thoroughly, if he came to reckoning; and, if he is not a devil, I oblige him to deal faithfully with me by so entire a trust: 

          “Multi fallere do cuerunt, dum timent falli;
          et aliis jus peccandi suspicando fecerunt.”

     ["Many have taught others to deceive, while they fear to be
     deceived, and, by suspecting them, have given them a title to do
     ill.”—­Seneca, Epist., 3.]

The most common security I take of my people is ignorance; I never presume any to be vicious till I have first found them so; and repose the most confidence in the younger sort, that I think are least spoiled by ill example.  I had rather be told at two months’ end that I have spent four hundred crowns, than to have my ears battered every night with three, five, seven:  and I have been, in this way, as little robbed as another.  It is true, I am willing enough not to see it; I, in some sort, purposely, harbour a kind of perplexed, uncertain knowledge of my money:  up to a certain point, I am content to doubt.  One must leave a little room for the infidelity or indiscretion of a servant; if you have left enough, in gross, to do your business, let the overplus of Fortune’s liberality run a little more freely at her mercy; ’tis the gleaner’s portion.  After all, I do not so much value the fidelity of my people as I contemn their injury.  What a mean and ridiculous thing it is for a man to study his money, to delight in handling and telling it over and over again!  ’Tis by this avarice makes its approaches.