Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/374

352 upon no constraint or necessity should thus wilfully betake himself to a laborious and strange course of painful life, sitting thus by himself mopish, sequestered from all the world, and deprived of all earthly goods; In which thoughts and conceits of his he spied (as the report goeth) a little mouse creeping and running towards the crumbs that were fallen from his loaf of bread, and was very busy about them, whereupon he took heart again, reproved and blamed his own feeble courage, saying thus to himself: What sayest thou, Diogenes? Seest thou not this silly creature what good cheer it maketh with thy leavings? how merry she is whiles she feedeth thereupon? and thou (like a trim man indeed as thou art) dost wail, weep, and lament that thou drinkest not thyself drunk as those do yonder; nor lie in soft and delicate beds, richly set out with gay and costly furniture.

Now when such temptations and distractions as these be return not often, but the rule and discourse of reason presently riseth up against them, maketh head, turneth upon them suddenly again (as it were) in the chase and pursued in the route by enemies, and so quickly discomfiteth and dispatcheth the anxiety and despair of the mind, then a man may be assured that he hath profited indeed in the school of philosophy, and is well settled and confirmed therein. But forasmuch as the occasions which do thus shake men that are given to philosophy, yea, and otherwhiles pluck them a contrary way, do not only proceed from themselves by reason of their own infirmity and so gather strength; but the sad and serious counsels also of friends, together with the reproofs and contradictory assaults made upon them by adversaries, between good earnest and game, do mollify their tender hearts, and make them to bow, bend, and yield, which otherwhiles have been able in the end to drive some altogether from philosophy, who were well entered therein: It may be thought no small sign of good proceeding, if one can endure the same meekly without being moved with such temptations, or any ways troubled and pinched when he shall hear the names and surnames of such and such companions and equals otherwise of his who are come to great credit and wealth in princes' courts; or be advanced by marriages, matching with wives who brought them good dowries and portions; or who are wont to go into the common hall of a city, attended upon and accompanied with a train and troop of the multitude, either to attain unto some place of government, or to plead some notable cause of great consequence: for he that is not disquieted, astonied, or overcome