FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  
"Est quaedam flere voluptas;" ["'Tis a certain kind of pleasure to weep." --Ovid, Trist., iv. 3, 27.] and one Attalus in Seneca says, that the memory of our lost friends is as grateful to us, as bitterness in wine, when too old, is to the palate: "Minister vetuli, puer, Falerni Inger' mi calices amariores"-- ["Boy, when you pour out old Falernian wine, the bitterest put into my bowl."--Catullus, xxvii. I.] and as apples that have a sweet tartness. Nature discovers this confusion to us; painters hold that the same motions and grimaces of the face that serve for weeping; serve for laughter too; and indeed, before the one or the other be finished, do but observe the painter's manner of handling, and you will be in doubt to which of the two the design tends; and the extreme of laughter does at last bring tears: "Nullum sine auctoramento malum est." ["No evil is without its compensation."--Seneca, Ep., 69.] When I imagine man abounding with all the conveniences that are to be desired (let us put the case that all his members were always seized with a pleasure like that of generation, in its most excessive height) I feel him melting under the weight of his delight, and see him utterly unable to support so pure, so continual, and so universal a pleasure. Indeed, he is running away whilst he is there, and naturally makes haste to escape, as from a place where he cannot stand firm, and where he is afraid of sinking. When I religiously confess myself to myself, I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice; and I am afraid that Plato, in his purest virtue (I, who am as sincere and loyal a lover of virtue of that stamp as any other whatever), if he had listened and laid his ear close to himself and he did so no doubt--would have heard some jarring note of human mixture, but faint and only perceptible to himself. Man is wholly and throughout but patch and motley. Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice; insomuch that Plato says, they undertake to cut off the hydra's head, who pretend to clear the law of all inconveniences: "Omne magnum exemplum habet aliquid ex iniquo, quod contra singulos utilitate publics rependitur," ["Every great example has in it some mixture of injustice, which recompenses the wro
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
virtue
 

pleasure

 

mixture

 
injustice
 

afraid

 

laughter

 
Seneca
 

running

 

sincere

 
whilst

Indeed

 

utterly

 

continual

 
purest
 
unable
 

support

 

universal

 

tincture

 
religiously
 

confess


sinking

 

naturally

 

escape

 

inconveniences

 

magnum

 

exemplum

 

pretend

 

aliquid

 

recompenses

 

rependitur


publics

 

iniquo

 
contra
 

singulos

 

utilitate

 
undertake
 

jarring

 

listened

 

justice

 

subsist


insomuch

 

motley

 
perceptible
 

wholly

 

bitterest

 
Catullus
 

Falernian

 
calices
 
amariores
 
apples