I have no other passion to keep me in breath. What avarice, ambition, quarrels, lawsuits do for others who, like me, have no particular vocation, love would much more commodiously do; it would restore to me vigilance, sobriety, grace, and the care of my person; it would reassure my countenance, so that the grimaces of old age, those deformed and dismal looks, might not come to disgrace it; would again put me upon sound and wise studies, by which I might render myself more loved and esteemed, clearing my mind of the despair of itself and of its use, and redintegrating it to itself; would divert me from a thousand troublesome thoughts, a thousand melancholic humours that idleness and the ill posture of our health loads us withal at such an age; would warm again, in dreams at least, the blood that nature is abandoning; would hold up the chin, and a little stretch out the nerves, the vigour and gaiety of life of that poor man who is going full drive towards his ruin. But I very well understand that it is a commodity hard to recover: by weakness and long experience our taste is become more delicate and nice; we ask most when we bring least, and are harder to choose when we least deserve to be accepted: and knowing ourselves for what we are, we are less confident and more distrustful; nothing can assure us of being beloved, considering our condition and theirs. I am out of countenance to see myself in company with those young wanton creatures: "Cujus in indomito constantior inguine nervus, Quam nova collibus arbor inhaeret." ["In whose unbridled reins the vigour is more inherent than in the young tree on the hills."--Horace, Epod., xii. 19.] To what end should we go insinuate our misery amid their gay and sprightly humour? "Possint ut juvenes visere fervidi. Multo non sine risu, Dilapsam in cineres facem." ["As the fervid youths may behold, not without laughter, a burning torch worn to ashes."--Horace, Od., iv. 13, 21.]