MEMBER 6 Against envy, spite, rivalry, hatred, ambition, Self-love and all other passions.

Against those other passions and emotions, there is no better remedy than to equip ourselves as sailors do when they put to sea, providing everything needed to withstand a storm: furnish ourselves with philosophical and religious precepts and other people’s examples, “learning from others’ experience what may be useful to ourselves.” Balance our hearts with love, charity, gentleness and patience. Counter those unruly impulses of envy, spite, ill temper and hatred with their opposite virtues, as we bend a crooked stick the other way. Set endurance against hardship, patience against abuse, generosity against greed, courage against faint-heartedness, gentleness against anger and humility against pride. Examine why we are so disturbed: on what grounds, on what occasion? Is the cause real or imagined?

Then either calm ourselves by reason, or turn our minds to some other object, an opposite emotion, or reflection beforehand: “A man ought to consider how he will bear adversity. Returning from abroad, he should always keep in mind dangers, losses, exile, a son’s misconduct, a wife’s death or a daughter’s illness: these are common things and can happen, so that nothing may take his mind by surprise.”

Make them familiar—all kinds of calamities—so that when they happen they may trouble us less. “In prosperity, consider how you will bear adversity.” Or, after mature deliberation, avoid the effect or remove the cause, as people with toothache do by pulling the teeth right out.

To save its life, the beaver cuts off its own testicles; You too: cast off whatever harms you, and you will be safe.

The beaver bites off its testicles to save the rest: Do the same with whatever weighs you down.

Or, as people fencing with wooden swords learn through a few blows of the cudgel how to avoid an enemy’s strokes, let us arm ourselves against every violent assault that may invade our minds. A little experience and practice will accustom us to it. “An old fox,” as the proverb says, “is not caught in a snare”: an old fox is not so easily trapped. An old soldier in the world should, I think, remain untroubled, ready to meet every turn of fortune and every encounter, and answer with that resolute commander, come what may:

No new and unexpected form of hardship Rises before me, maiden; I have foreseen it all and gone through it beforehand in my mind.

No hardship takes me unawares, For I have long considered what may come.

This is not the first wound my breast Has felt; I have borne worse.

The Republic of Venice has this inscription in its armoury: “Happy is the city that thinks of war in time of peace”—a fitting motto for everyone’s home. Happy is the man who prepares for a future assault. Yet we often complain, fret and grumble without cause; we give way to emotions that we could resist, but will not.

Socrates was bad by nature: envious, as he admitted when Zopyrus the reader of faces accused him of it, ill-tempered and lustful. Yet, being Socrates, he corrected and reformed himself. You are malicious, envious, greedy, impatient and, no doubt, lustful; yet, being a Christian, correct and govern yourself.

I admit it is something, and enough to stir anyone, to find himself despised, obscure, neglected, disgraced, undervalued and left behind. Some cannot bear it—not even steadfast Lipsius, otherwise a judicious man, yet too weak and emotional in this matter, as his words show: “I have former colleagues whom I cannot look at without growling: lately nobodies, now Maecenases and Agrippas, already masters of the highest peak.”

But he was much to blame for it. To a wise, composed man it means nothing. We cannot all be honoured and rich, all Caesars. If we are willing to be content, our present condition is good, and in some people’s opinion preferable. Let them go on: acquire wealth, offices, titles, honours, advancement and whatever else they wish, through chance, fraud, imposture, simony and crooked methods, as too many do—through bribery, flattery, parasitic ingratiation, shamelessness and servility to the times. Let them climb to advancement in defiance of virtue; let them go ahead and cross my path on every side. “They do not offend me, provided they do not run into my eyes,” as he said, correcting his earlier error: they do not offend me so long as they do not thrust themselves into my sight.

I am obscure and poor, “in settled poverty,” but I live safely and quietly. They have rank, great resources, pomp and state: they are glorious. But what comes with it? Envy, trouble and anxiety; as much work to maintain their position creditably as to gain it in the first place. I am content with my fortunes, “a spectator from afar,” and like “to watch Neptune raging far away from the land.” The ambitious man is dissatisfied with his lot; but what does he gain? His whole life laid open and his disgrace exposed. Not one in a thousand has done more deserving praise than blame and censure; the best remedy is to remain a private person.

Let them run, ride, scramble like so many fish for a crumb, scrape, climb, grab, snatch, cheat, flatter, bend with the times and smirk. Let them take everything among them—wealth, honour—and get what they can. It does not trouble me.

Let my own land shelter me In a secluded, safe home.

I am well pleased with my fortunes:

I live and reign, leaving those things behind.

“I have learned to be content in whatever state I am”: Philippians 1:11. Come what may, I am prepared: “Whether I travel in a great ship or a small one, I shall travel as one and the same man.” I am unchanged.