Memoirs of Condé
of the Chevalier de Flourilles, a lieutenant-general of his killed in 1674, at the Battle of Senelf.
| [No. 153] | Saturday, August 25, 1711 | Steele |
Habet natura ut aliarum omnium rerum sic vivendi modum; senectus autem peractio Ætatis est tanquam Fabulæ. Cujus defatigationem fugere debemus, præsertim adjunctâ Satietate.
Tull. de Senec.
Of all the impertinent Wishes which we hear expressed in Conversation, there is not one more unworthy a Gentleman or a Man of liberal Education, than that of wishing one's self Younger. I have observed this Wish is usually made upon Sight of some Object which gives the Idea of a past Action, that it is no Dishonour to us that we cannot now repeat, or else on what was in it self shameful when we performed it. It is a certain Sign of a foolish or a dissolute Mind if we want our Youth again only for the Strength of Bones and Sinews which we once were Masters of. It is (as my Author has it) as absurd in an old Man to wish for the Strength of a Youth, as it would be in a young Man to wish for the Strength of a Bull or a Horse. These Wishes are both equally out of Nature, which should direct in all things that are not contradictory to Justice, Law, and Reason.
tho' every old Man has been