Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/144

 lingering memory and the image of that precious time of tender youth, in which (when it is with us) sky and earth and all things seem to us ever making merry and laughing before our eyes, and the sweet springtide of happiness seems to blossom in our thought, as in a delightful and lovely garden. Therefore in the evening chill of life, when our sun begins to sink to its setting and steals away those pleasures, we should fare better if in losing them, we could lose the memory of them also, and as Themistocles said, find an art that shall teach us to forget. For so deceitful are our bodily senses, that they often cheat even the judgment of our minds. Thus it seems to me that old people are in like case with those who keep their eyes fixed upon the land as they leave port, and think their ship is standing still and the shore recedes, although it is the other way. For both the port and also time and its pleasures remain the same, and one after another we take flight in the ship of mortality upon that boisterous sea which absorbs and devours everything, and are never suffered to touch shore again, but always tossed by adverse winds we are wrecked upon some rock at last. Since therefore the senile mind is an unfit subject for many pleasures, it cannot enjoy them; and just as to men in fever, when the palate is spoiled by corrupt vapours, all wines seem bitter, however precious and delicate they be,— so old men, because of their infirmity (which yet does not deprive them of appetite), find pleasures flat and cold and very different from those which they remember tasting of old, although the pleasures are intrinsically the same. Thus they feel themselves despoiled, and they lament and call the present times bad, not perceiving that the change lies in themselves and not in the times; and on the other hand they call to mind their bygone pleasures, and bring back the time when these were enjoyed and praise it as good, because it seems to carry with it a savour of what they felt when it was present. For in truth our minds hold all things hateful that have been with us in our sorrows, and love those that have been with us in our joys. This is why it is sometimes highest bliss for a lover to look at a window although closed, because he there had once the