Page:Essays of Francis Bacon 1908 Scott.djvu/132

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was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), ''that the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired. Bona rerum secundarum optabilia; adversarum mirabilia.'' Certainly if miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen), ''It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God. Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei.'' This would have done better in poesy, where transcendences 