jealousy of his wife, or suspicion of his son, or doubt about the fidelity of a friend. Flee from this cloud that is so black and threatening, for when its hidden fury bursts forth, you will not fail to hear its thunder and see its lightning. Sec. V. How shall you flee from it? Why, by dissipating and distracting your curiosity, by turning your soul to better and pleasanter objects: examine the phenomena of sky, and earth, and air, and sea. Are you by nature fond of gazing at little or great things? If at great, turn your attention to the sun, consider its rising and setting: view the changes of the moon, like the changes of our mortal life, see how it waxes and wanes, "How at the first it peers out small and dim Till it unfolds its full and glorious Orb, And when its zenith it has once attained, Again it wanes, grows small, and disappears."[616] These are indeed Nature's secrets, but they bring no trouble on those that study them. But if you decline the study of great things, inspect with curiosity smaller matters, see how some plants flourish, are green and gay, and exhibit their beauty, all the year round, while others are sometimes gay like them, at other times, like some unthrift, run through their resources entirely, and are left bare and naked. Consider again their various shapes, how some produce oblong fruits, others angular, others smooth and round. But perhaps you will not care to pry into all this, since you will find nothing bad. If you must then ever bestow your time and attention on what is bad, as the serpent lives but in deadly matter, go to history, and turn your eye on the sum total of human misery. For there you will find "the falls of men, and murders of their lives,"[617] rapes of women, attacks of slaves, treachery of friends, mixing of poisons, envyings, jealousies, "shipwrecks of families," and dethroning of princes. Sate and cloy yourself on these, you will by so doing vex and enrage none of your associates. Sec. VI. But it seems curiosity does not rejoice in stale evils, but only in fresh and recent ones, gladly viewing the spectacle of tragedies of yesterday, but backward in taking part in comic and festive scenes. And so the curious person is a languid and listless hearer to the narrator of a marriage, or sacrifice, or solemn procession, he says he has heard most of all that before, bids the narrator cut it short and come to the point; but if his visitor tell him of the violation of some girl, or the adultery of some married woman, or the disputes and intended litigation of brothers, he doesn't go to sleep then, nor pretend want of leisure, "But he pricks up his ears, and asks for more." And indeed those lines, "Alas! how quicker far to mortals' ears Do ill news travel than the news of good!"