MEMB. VI.
Against Envy, Livor, Emulation, Hatred, Ambition, Self-love, and all other Affections.
Against those other [3932]passions and affections, there is no better remedy than as mariners when they go to sea, provide all things necessary to resist a tempest: to furnish ourselves with philosophical and Divine precepts, other men's examples, [3933]Periculum ex aliis facere, sibi quod ex usu siet: To balance our hearts with love, charity, meekness, patience, and counterpoise those irregular motions of envy, livor, spleen, hatred, with their opposite virtues, as we bend a crooked staff another way, to oppose [3934]“sufferance to labour, patience to reproach,” bounty to covetousness, fortitude to pusillanimity, meekness to anger, humility to pride, to examine ourselves for what cause we are so much disquieted, on what ground, what occasion, is it just or feigned? And then either to pacify ourselves by reason, to divert by some other object, contrary passion, or premeditation. [3935]Meditari secum oportet quo pacto adversam aerumnam ferat, Paricla, damna, exilia peregre rediens semper cogitet, aut filii peccatum, aut uxoris mortem, aut morbum filiae, communia esse haec: fieri posse, ut ne quid animo sit novum. To make them familiar, even all kind of calamities, that when they happen they may be less troublesome unto us. In secundis meditare, quo pacto feras adversa: or out of mature judgment to avoid the effect, or disannul the cause, as they do that are troubled with toothache, pull them quite out.
[3936]Ut vivat castor, sibi testes amputat ipse;
Tu quoque siqua nocent, abjice, tutus eris.
The beaver bites off's stones to save the rest:
Do thou the like with that thou art opprest.
[3937]———non ulla laborum
O virgo nova mi facies inopinaque surgit,
Omnia percepi atque animo mecum ante peregi.