Produced by David Widger
Translated by Charles Cotton
Edited by William Carew Hazilitt
1877
VI. Of Coaches.
VII. Of the Inconvenience of Greatness.
VIII. Of the Art of Conference.
It is very easy to verify, that great authors, when they write of causes,not only make use of those they think to be the true causes, but also ofthose they believe not to be so, provided they have in them some beautyand invention: they speak true and usefully enough, if it be ingeniously.We cannot make ourselves sure of the supreme cause, and therefore crowd agreat many together, to see if it may not accidentally be amongst them:
"Namque unam dicere causam
Non satis est, verum plures, unde una tamen sit."
[Lucretius, vi. 704.—The sense is in the preceding passage.]
Do you ask me, whence comes the custom of blessing those who sneeze?We break wind three several ways; that which sallies from below is toofilthy; that which breaks out from the mouth carries with it somereproach of gluttony; the third is sneezing, which, because it proceedsfrom the head and is without offence, we give it this civil reception: donot laugh at this distinction; they say 'tis Aristotle's.
I think I have seen in Plutarch' (who of all the authors I know, is hewho has best mixed art with nature, and judgment with knowledge), hisgiving as a reason for the, rising of the stomach in those who are atsea, that it is occasioned by fear; having first found out some reason bywhich he proves that fear may produce such an effect. I, who am verysubject to it, know well that this cause concerns not me; and I know it,not by argument, but by necessary experience. Without instancing whathas been told me, that the same thing often happens in beasts, especiallyhogs, who are out of all apprehension of danger; and what an acquaintanceof mine told me of himself, that though very subject to it, thedisposition to vomit has three or four times gone off him, being veryafraid in a violent storm, as it happened to that ancient:
"Pejus vexabar, quam ut periculum mihi succurreret;"
["I was too ill to think of danger." (Or the reverse:)
"I was too frightened to be ill."—Seneca, Ep., 53. 2]
I was never afraid upon the water, nor indeed in any other peril (and Ihave had enough before my eyes that would have sufficed, if death beone), so as to be astounded to lose my judgment. Fear springs sometimesas much from want of judgment as from want of courage. All the dangers Ihave been in I have looked upon without winking, with an open, sound, andentire sight; and, indeed, a man must have courage to fear. It formerlyserved me better than other help, so to order and regulate my retreat,that it was, if not without fear, nevertheless without affright andastonishment; it was agitated, indeed, but not amazed or stupefied.Great souls go yet much farther, and present to us flights, not onlysteady and temperate, but moreover lofty. Let us make a relation of thatwhich Alcibiades reports of Socrates, his fellow in arms: "I found him,"says he, "after the rout of our army, him and Lachez, last among thosewho fled, and considered him at my leisure and in security, for I wasmounted on a good horse, and he on foot, as he had fought. I tooknotice, in the first place, how much judgment and resolution he showe