But nevertheless, you say--which But is aerugo
mera, a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon. But, you
say, you would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, but to
stay a while longer with patience and complaisance, till I had
gotten such an estate as might afford me, according to the saying of
that person whom you and I love very much, and would believe as soon
as another man, cum dignitate otium. This were excellent advice to
Joshua, who could bid the sun stay too. But there's no fooling with
life when it is once turned beyond forty. The seeking for a fortune
then is but a desperate after game, it is a hundred to one if a man
fling two sixes and recover all; especially if his hand be no
luckier than mine. There is some help for all the defects of
fortune, for if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he
may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter. Epicurus writes a
letter to Idomeneus, who was then a very powerful, wealthy, and it
seems bountiful person, to recommend to him, who had made so many
men rich, one Pythocles, a friend of his, whom he desired to be made
a rich man too: But I entreat you that you would not do it just the
same way as you have done to many less deserving persons, but in the
most gentlemanly manner of obliging him, which is not to add
anything to his estate, but to take something from his desires.
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