“Others say that it is better for a man to suffer every year three or four returns of his usual disorders, such as gout, sciatica, and the like than to be tormented the whole year by not indulging his appetite, and eating everything his palate likes best, since by a good regimen alone he is sure to get the better of such attacks. To this I answer that, our natural heat growing less and less as we advance in years, no regimen can retain virtue enough to conquer the malignity with which disorders of repletion are ever attended, so that he must die at last of these periodical disorders, because they abridge life as health prolongs it. Others pretend that it is much better to live ten years less than not indulge one’s appetite. My reply is that longevity ought to be highly valued by men of genius and intellect; as to others it is of no great matter if it is not duly prized by them, since it is they who brutalise the world (_perchè questi fanno brutto il mondo_), so that _their_ death is rather of service to mankind.” Cornaro frequently interrupts his discourse with apostrophes to the genius of Temperance, in which he seems to be at a loss for words to express his feeling of gratitude and thankfulness for the marvellous change effected in his constitution, by which he had been delivered from the terrible load of sufferings of his earlier life, and by which moreover he could fully appreciate, as he had never dreamed before, the beauties and charms of nature of the external world, as well as develope the mental faculties with which he had been endowed:-- “O thrice holy Sobriety, so useful to man by the services thou renderest him! Thou prolongest his days, by which means he may greatly improve his understanding. Thou moreover freest him from the dreadful thoughts of death. How greatly is thy faithful disciple indebted to thee, since by thy assistance he enjoys this beautiful expanse of the visible world, which is really beautiful to such as know how to view it with a philosophic eye, as thou hast enabled me to do!... O truly happy life which, besides these favours conferred on an old man, hast so improved and perfected him that he has now a better relish for his dry bread than he had formerly for the most exquisite dainties. And all this thou hast effected by acting rationally, knowing that bread is, above all things, man’s proper food when seasoned by a good appetite.... It is for this reason that dry bread has so much relish for me; and I know from experience, and can with truth affirm, that I find such sweetness in it that I should be afraid of sinning against temperance were it not for my being convinced of the absolute necessity of eating of it, and that we cannot make use of a more natural food.”