Felicity is an unquiet thing; it torments itself, and puzzles the brain. It makes some people ambitious, others luxurious; it puffs up some, and softens others; only (as it is with wine) some heads bear it better than others; but it dissolves all. Greatness stands upon a precipice: and if prosperity carries a man never so little beyond his poise, it overbears and dashes him to pieces. It is a rare thing for a man in a great fortune to lay down his happiness gently; it being a common fate for a man to sink under the weight of those felicities that raise him. How many of the nobility did Marius bring down to herdsmen and other mean offices! Nay, in the very moment of our despising servants, we may be made so ourselves. CHAPTER XIII. HOPE AND FEAR ARE THE BANE OF HUMAN LIFE. No man can be said to be perfectly happy that runs the risk of disappointment: which is the case of every man that _fears_ or _hopes_ for anything. For _hope_ and _fear_, how distant soever they may seem to be the one from the other, they are both of them yet coupled in the same chain, as the guard and the prisoner; and the one treads upon the heels of the other. The reason of this is obvious, for they are passions that look forward, and are ever solicitous for the future; only _hope_ is the more plausible weakness of the two, which in truth, upon the main, are inseparable; for the one cannot be without the other: but where the _hope_ is stronger than the _fear_, or the _fear_ than the _hope_, we call it the one or the other; for without _fear_ it were no longer _hope_, but _certainty_; as without _hope_ it were no longer _fear_ but _despair_. We may come to understand whether our disputes are vain or not, if we do but consider that we are either troubled about the _present_, the _future_ or _both_. If the present, it is easy to judge, and the future is uncertain. It is a foolish thing to be miserable beforehand for fear of misery to come; for a man loses the present, which he might enjoy, in expectation of the future: nay, the fear of losing anything is as bad as the loss itself. I will be as prudent as I can, but not timorous or careless; and I will bethink myself, and forecast what inconveniences may happen before they come. It is true, a man may fear, and yet not be fearful; which is no more than to have the affection of fear without the vice of it; but yet a frequent admittance of it runs into a habit. It is a shameful and an unmanly thing to be doubtful, timorous, and uncertain; to set one step forward, and another backward; and to be irresolute. Can there be any man so fearful, that had not rather fall once than hang always in suspense?