proceed from the disorder of our own fancy: those of which we can see the
end are hers; those that fly before us, and of which we can see no end,
are our own: the poverty of goods is easily cured; the poverty of the
soul is irreparable:

"Nam si, quod satis est homini, id satis esse potesset
Hoc sat erat: nunc, quum hoc non est, qui credimus porro
Divitias ullas animum mi explere potesse?"

["For if what is for man enough, could be enough, it were enough;
but since it is not so, how can I believe that any wealth can give
my mind content."--Lucilius aped Nonium Marcellinum, V. sec. 98.]

Socrates, seeing a great quantity of riches, jewels, and furniture
carried in pomp through his city: "How many things," said he, "I do not
desire!"--[Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., V. 32.]--Metrodorus lived on twelve
ounces a day, Epicurus upon less; Metrocles slept in winter abroad
amongst sheep, in summer in the cloisters of churches:

"Sufficit ad id natura, quod poscit."

["Nature suffices for what he requires."--Seneca, Ep., 90.]

Cleanthes lived by the labour of his own hands, and boasted that
Cleanthes, if he would, could yet maintain another Cleanthes.

If that which nature exactly and originally requires of us for the
conservation of our being be too little (as in truth what it is, and how
good cheap life may be maintained, cannot be better expressed than by
this consideration, that it is so little that by its littleness it
escapes the gripe and shock of fortune), let us allow ourselves a little
more; let us call every one of our habits and conditions nature; let us
rate and treat ourselves by this measure; let us stretch our
appurtenances and accounts so far; for so far, I fancy, we have some
excuse. Custom is a second nature, and no less powerful. What is
wanting to my custom, I reckon is wanting to me; and I should be almost
as well content that they took away my life as cut me short in the way
wherein I have so long lived. I am no longer in condition for any great
change, nor to put myself into a new and unwonted course, not even to
augmentation. 'Tis past the time for me to become other than what I am;
and as I should complain of any great good hap that should now befall me,
that it came not in time to be enjoyed:

"Quo mihi fortunas, si non conceditur uti?"

["What is the good fortune to me, if it is not granted to me
to use