Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/199

Rh displeased with either of those contrary elements of the art, but he that affecteth the one as well as the other, and knoweth how to use and mix both together with skill for to serve his purpose; even so, considering that in the occurrences of man's life there be so many contrarieties, and one weigheth against another in manner of counterpoise; for (according to Euripides): It is not meet that we should let our hearts fall and be discouraged with the one sort whensoever it happeneth, but we ought, according to the rules of harmony in music, to stop the point always of the worst with strokes of better, and by overcasting misfortunes (as it were) with a veil and curtain of good haps, or by setting one to the other, to make a good composition and a pleasant accord in our life, fitting and sorting our own turns. For it is not as Menander said:

but rather according to Empedocles: No sooner are we come into the world, but each one of us hath two angels, called Ræmons: two destinies (I say) are allotted unto us, for to take the charge and government of our life, unto which he attributeth livers and sundry names:

Insomuch as our nativity receiving the seeds of each of all these passions blended and confused together, and by reason whereof the course of our life not being uniform, but full of disordered and unequal dispositions, a man of good and sound judgment ought to wish and desire at God's hand the better, to expect and look for the worse, and to make an use of them both, namely, by abridging and cutting off that which is excessive and too much: For not he only (as Epicurus was wont to say) shall come with most delight and pleasure to see the