looked upon as unhappy who died without speaking, and who had not his nearest relations to close his eyes.  I have enough to do to comfort myself, without having to console others; thoughts enough in my head, not to need that circumstances should possess me with new; and matter enough to occupy me without borrowing.  This affair is out of the part of society; ’tis the act of one single person.  Let us live and be merry amongst our friends; let us go repine and die amongst strangers; a man may find those, for his money, who will shift his pillow and rub his feet, and will trouble him no more than he would have them; who will present to him an indifferent countenance, and suffer him to govern himself, and to complain according to his own method.

I wean myself daily by my reason from this childish and inhuman humour, of desiring by our sufferings to move the compassion and mourning of our friends:  we stretch our own incommodities beyond their just extent when we extract tears from others; and the constancy which we commend in every one in supporting his adverse fortune, we accuse and reproach in our friends when the evil is our own; we are not satisfied that they should be sensible of our condition only, unless they be, moreover, afflicted.  A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief.  He who makes himself lamented without reason is a man not to be lamented when there shall be real cause:  to be always complaining is the way never to be lamented; by making himself always in so pitiful a taking, he is never commiserated by any.  He who makes himself out dead when he is alive, is subject to be thought living when he is dying.  I have seen some who have taken it ill when they have been told that they looked well, and that their pulse was good; restrain their smiles, because they betrayed a recovery, and be angry, at their health because it was not to be lamented:  and, which is a great deal more, these were not women.  I describe my infirmities, such as they really are, at most, and avoid all expressions of evil prognostic and composed exclamations.  If not mirth, at least a temperate countenance in the standers-by, is proper in the presence of a wise sick man:  he does not quarrel with health, for, seeing himself in a contrary condition, he is pleased to contemplate it sound and entire in others, and at least to enjoy it for company:  he does not, for feeling himself melt away, abandon all living thoughts, nor avoid ordinary discourse.  I would study sickness whilst I am well; when it has seized me, it will make its impression real enough, without the help of my imagination.  We prepare ourselves beforehand for the journeys we undertake, and resolve upon them; we leave the appointment of the hour when to take horse to the company, and in their favour defer it.