Volume II Part 4 (1/2)
Youth, age, and the sick require a different quantity
And so do those of contrary comatic man is not sufficient for a choleric
The ht to be (as much as possibly may be) exactly proportionable to the quality and condition of the stoests it
That quantity that is sufficient, the stoest, and it sufficeth the due nourishs estion than others
The difficulty lies in finding out an exact measure; but eat for necessity, not pleasure; for lust knows not where necessity ends
Wouldst thou enjoy a long life, a healthy body, and a vigorous mind, and be acquainted also with the wonderful works of God, labour in the first place to bring thy appetite to reason
THE EPHEMERA; AN EMBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE
TO MADAME BRILLON, OF PassY
Written in 1778
You may remember, my dear friend, that e lately spent that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the company We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an epheenerations, ere told, were bred and expired within the day I happened to see a living coed in conversation You know I understand all the inferior anireat application to the study of theress I have h curiosity, to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warn musicians, one a _cousin_, the other a _ly as regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a ht I; you are certainly under a wise, just, and rievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the perfections and in ray-headed one, as single on another leaf, and talking to hi a, in hopes it will likewise a of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony
”It was,” said he, ”the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joy, could not itself subsist hteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent ives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it uished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction I have lived seven of those hours, a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty ! I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire! My present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas, no more! And I h still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight er What now avails allhoney-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy? What the political struggles I have been engaged in for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or eneral! for, in politics, what can laws do without morals?
Our present race of ephemerae will in a course of minutes become corrupt like those of other and older bushes, and, consequently, as wretched
And in philosophy how s and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name they say I shall leave behind h to nature and to glory But ill faer exists? And ill becohteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end and be buried in universal ruin?”
To er pursuits, no solid pleasures now re well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemerae, and now and then a kind smile and a tune from the ever amiable _Brillante_
THE WHISTLE
TO MADAME BRILLON
Passy, November 10, 1779
I am charmed with your description of Paradise, and with your plan of living there; and I approve much of your conclusion, that, in the ood we can froood from it than we do, and suffer less evil, if ould take care not to give too much for _whistles_ For to me it seems that lect of that caution
You ask what Ione of myself
When I was a child of seven years old, my friends, on a holyday, filled my pocket with coppers I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children; and, being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_ that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave allall over the house,all the fa the bargain I had iven four tiood things I hed at me so much for ave ave me pleasure
This, however, was afterward of use toon my mind; so that often, when I was te, I said to ive too rew up, caht I ave too much for the whistle_
When I saw one too a his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to ives too much for his whistle_