Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/155

Rh best way haply it were altogether to avoid an house and not therein at all to dwell, which is close, without fresh air, dark, standing bleak and cold, or otherwise unhealthful: Howbeit, if a man by reason that he hath been long used to such an house, delight in that seat, and will there abide, he may either, by altering the prospects and removing the lights, or by changing the stairs into another place, or else by opening the doors of one side, and shutting them upon another, make the house more lightsome, better exposed to the wind for to receive fresh air, and in one word, more wholesome than before. And verily some have much amended whole cities by the like alterations: as, for example, men say that one Chaeron in times past turned my native city and place of nativity, Chaeronea, to lie eastward, which before looked toward the western wind Zephyrus, and received the sun setting from the mount Parnassus. And Empedocles, the natural philosopher, by stopping up the mouth or deep chink of a certain mountain between two rocks, which breathed out a noisome and pestilent southern wind upon all the champaign country and plain underneath, was thought to have put by the plague, which, by occasion of that wind, reigned ordinarily before in that country.

Now forasmuch as there be certain hurtful and pestiferous passions, which send up into our soul tempestuous troubles and darkness, it were to be wished that they were chased out quite, and thrown down to the very ground; whereby we might give ourselves a free prospect, an open and clear light, a fresh and pure air; or if we be not so happy, yet at leastwise endeavour we ought, by all means possible, to change, alter, translate, transpose and turn them so about, as they may be found more fit and commodious to serve our turns. As, for example, and to go no farther for the matter, curiosity, which I take to be a desire to know the faults and imperfections in other men, is a vice or disease which seemeth not clear of envy and maliciousness: And unto him that is infected therewith may very well be said: "Most spightful and envious man,""Why dost thou ever find""With piercing eyes thy neighbour's faults,""And in thine own art blind?"Divert thine eyes a little from things without, and turn thy much meddling and curiosity to those that be within. If thou take so great a pleasure and delight to deal in the knowledge