["Fortune is never simply complaisant (unmixed).” 
—­Quintus Curtius, iv. 14]

You see, then, it is only you that trouble yourself; you will everywhere follow yourself, and everywhere complain; for there is no satisfaction here below, but either for brutish or for divine souls.  He who, on so just an occasion, has no contentment, where will he think to find it?  How many thousands of men terminate their wishes in such a condition as yours?  Do but reform yourself; for that is wholly in your own power! whereas you have no other right but patience towards fortune: 

          “Nulla placida quies est, nisi quam ratio composuit.”

     ["There is no tranquillity but that which reason has conferred.” 
     —­Seneca, Ep., 56.]

I see the reason of this advice, and see it perfectly well; but he might sooner have done, and more pertinently, in bidding me in one word be wise; that resolution is beyond wisdom; ’tis her precise work and product.  Thus the physician keeps preaching to a poor languishing patient to “be cheerful”; but he would advise him a little more discreetly in bidding him “be well.”  For my part, I am but a man of the common sort.  ’Tis a wholesome precept, certain and easy to be understood, “Be content with what you have,” that is to say, with reason:  and yet to follow this advice is no more in the power of the wise men of the world than in me.  ’Tis a common saying, but of a terrible extent:  what does it not comprehend?  All things fall under discretion and qualification.  I know very well that, to take it by the letter, this pleasure of travelling is a testimony of uneasiness and irresolution, and, in sooth, these two are our governing and predominating qualities.  Yes, I confess, I see nothing, not so much as in a dream, in a wish, whereon I could set up my rest:  variety only, and the possession of diversity, can satisfy me; that is, if anything can.  In travelling, it pleases me that I may stay where I like, without inconvenience, and that I have a place wherein commodiously to divert myself.  I love a private life, because ’tis my own choice that I love it, not by any dissenting from or dislike of public life, which, peradventure, is as much according to my complexion.  I serve my prince more cheerfully because it is by the free election of my own judgment and reason, without any particular obligation; and that I am not reduced and constrained so to do for being rejected or disliked by the other party; and so of all the rest.  I hate the morsels that necessity carves me; any commodity upon which I had only to depend would have me by the throat;

          “Alter remus aquas, alter mihi radat arenas;”

     ["Let me have one oar in the water, and with the other rake the
     shore.”—­Propertius, iii. 3, 23.]

one cord will never hold me fast enough.  You will say, there is vanity in this way of living.  But where is there not?  All these fine precepts are vanity, and all wisdom is vanity: