["When there is least fear, there is for the most part least
danger."--Livy, xxii. 5.]

Our people are to blame who say that such an one is afraid of death, when
they would express that he thinks of it and foresees it: foresight is
equally convenient in what concerns us, whether good or ill. To consider
and judge of danger is, in some sort, the reverse to being astounded.
I do not find myself strong enough to sustain the force and impetuosity
of this passion of fear, nor of any other vehement passion whatever: if I
was once conquered and beaten down by it, I should never rise again very
sound. Whoever should once make my soul lose her footing, would never
set her upright again: she retastes and researches herself too
profoundly, and too much to the quick, and therefore would never let the
wound she had received heal and cicatrise. It has been well for me that
no sickness has yet discomposed her: at every charge made upon me, I
preserve my utmost opposition and defence; by which means the first that
should rout me would keep me from ever rallying again. I have no
after-game to play: on which side soever the inundation breaks my banks,
I lie open, and am drowned without remedy. Epicurus says, that a wise
man can never become a fool; I have an opinion reverse to this sentence,
which is, that he who has once been a very fool, will never after be very
wise. God grants me cold according to my cloth, and passions
proportionable to the means I have to withstand them: nature having laid
me open on the one side, has covered me on the other; having disarmed me
of strength, she has armed me with insensibility and an apprehension that
is regular, or, if you will, dull.

I cannot now long endure (and when I was young could much less) either
coach, litter, or boat, and hate all other riding but on horseback, both
in town and country. But I can bear a litter worse than a coach; and, by