y plunge myself headlong
into death, without considering or taking a view of it, as into a deep
and obscure abyss which swallows me up at one leap, and involves me in an
instant in a profound sleep, without any sense of pain. And in these
short and violent deaths, the consequence that I foresee administers more
consolation to me than the effect does fear. They say, that as life is
not better for being long, so death is better for being not long. I do
not so much evade being dead, as I enter into confidence with dying. I
wrap and shroud myself into the storm that is to blind and carry me away
with the fury of a sudden and insensible attack. Moreover, if it should
fall out that, as some gardeners say, roses and violets spring more
odoriferous near garlic and onions, by reason that the last suck and
imbibe all the ill odour of the earth; so, if these depraved natures
should also attract all the malignity of my air and climate, and render
it so much better and purer by their vicinity, I should not lose all.
That cannot be: but there may be something in this, that goodness is more
beautiful and attractive when it is rare; and that contrariety and
diversity fortify and consolidate well-doing within itself, and inflame
it by the jealousy of opposition and by glory. Thieves and robbers, of
their special favour, have no particular spite at me; no more have I to
them: I should have my hands too full. Like consciences are lodged under
several sorts of robes; like cruelty, disloyalty, rapine; and so much the
worse, and more falsely, when the more secure and concealed under colour
of the laws. I less hate an open professed injury than one that is
treacherous; an enemy in arms, than an enemy in a gown. Our fever has
seized upon a body that is not much the worse for it; there was fire
before, and now 'tis broken out into a flame; the noise is greater, not
the evil. I ordinarily answer such as ask me the reason of my travels,
"That I know very well what I fly from, but not what I seek." If they
tell me that there may be as little soundness amongst foreigners, and
that their manners are no better than ours: I first reply, that it is
hard to be believed;

"Tam multa: scelerum facies!"

["There are so many forms of crime."--Virgil, Georg., i. 506.]

secondly, that it is always gain to change an ill condition for one that
is uncertain; and that the ills of others ought not to afflict us so much
as our