e and my
work; I am less a writer of books than anything else. I have coveted
understanding for the service of my present and real conveniences, and
not to lay up a stock for my posterity. He who has anything of value in
him, let him make it appear in his conduct, in his ordinary discourses,
in his courtships, and his quarrels: in play, in bed, at table, in the
management of his affairs, in his economics. Those whom I see make good
books in ill breeches, should first have mended their breeches, if they
would have been ruled by me. Ask a Spartan whether he had rather be a
good orator or a good soldier: and if I was asked the same question, I
would rather choose to be a good cook, had I not one already to serve me.
My God! Madame, how should I hate such a recommendation of being a
clever fellow at writing, and an ass and an inanity in everything else!
Yet I had rather be a fool both here and there than to have made so ill a
choice wherein to employ my talent. And I am so far from expecting to
gain any new reputation by these follies, that I shall think I come off
pretty well if I lose nothing by them of that little I had before. For
besides that this dead and mute painting will take from my natural being,
it has no resemblance to my better condition, but is much lapsed from my
former vigour and cheerfulness, growing faded and withered: I am towards
the bottom of the barrel, which begins to taste of the lees.

"As to the rest, Madame, I should not have dared to make so bold with the
mysteries of physic, considering the esteem that you and so many others
have of it, had I not had encouragement from their own authors. I think
there are of these among the old Latin writers but two, Pliny and Celsus
if these ever fall into your hands, you will find that they speak much
more rudely of their art than I do; I but pinch it, they cut its throat.
Pliny, amongst other things, twits them with this, that when they are at
the end of their rope, they have a pretty device to save themselves, by
recommending their patients, whom they have teased and tormented with
their drugs and diets to no purpose, some to vows and miracles, others to
the hot baths. (Be not angry, Madame; he speaks not of those in our
parts, which are under the protection of your house, and all Gramontins.)
They have a third way of saving their own credit, of ridding their hands
of us and securing themselves from the reproaches we might cast in their
teeth of our