it may be useful to furnish your mind with some maxims that may best
serve to arm you against the assaults of misfortune. The vulgar, and
even philosophers, have decided that adverse fortune was most
difficult to sustain. For my own part I am of a different opinion, and
believe it more easy to support adversity than prosperity; and that
fortune is more treacherous and dangerous when she caresses than when
she dismays. Experience has taught me this, not books or arguments. I
have seen many persons sustain great losses, poverty, exile, tortures,
death, and even disorders that were worse than death with courage; but
I have seen none whose heads have not been turned by power, riches,
and honors. How often have we beheld those overthrown by good fortune
who could never be shaken by bad! This made me wish to learn how to
support a great fortune. You know the short time this work has taken.
I have been less attentive to what might shine than to what might be
useful on this subject. Truth and virtue are the wealth of all men;
and shall I not discourse on these with my dear Azon? I would prepare
for you, as in a little portable box, a friendly antidote against the
poison of good and bad fortune. The one requires a rein to repress the
sallies of a transported soul; the other a consolation to fortify the
overwhelmed and afflicted spirit.

Nature gave you, my friend, the heart of a king, but she gave you not
a kingdom, of which therefore Fortune could not deprive you. But I
doubt whether our ages can furnish an example of worse or better
treatment from her than yourself. In the first part of your life you
were blest with an admirable constitution and astonishing health and
vigor: some years after we beheld you thrice abandoned by the
physicians, who despaired of your life. The heavenly Physician, who
was your sole resource, restored your health, but not your former
strength. You were then called iron-footed, for your singular force
and agility; you are now bent, and lean upon the shoulders of those
whom you formerly supported. Your country beheld you one day its
governor, the next an exile. Princes disputed for your friendship, and
afterward conspired your ruin. You lost by death the greatest part of
your friends; the rest, according to custom, deserted you in calamity.
To these misfortunes was added a violent disease, which attacked you
when destitute of all succors, at a distance from your country and
family, in a strange land,