The Anatomy of Melancholy

If this is so, have we who have entered the ministry not had a fine catch all this while, to find no better fruit from our labours? “Is this why you grow pale? Is this a reason for anyone to go without dinner?” Do we wear ourselves away for this? Is this why we rise so early all year long, leaping, as he says, out of bed when we hear the bell ring, as though we had heard a thunderclap?

If this is all the respect, reward and honour we are to receive, “break your slender pens, Thalia, and tear up your books.” Let us abandon our books and take up some other way of life. Why should we study? “Why did my foolish parents teach me letters?” What did our parents mean by making us scholars, if after twenty years’ study we are as far from advancement as at the beginning? Why do we take such pains? “What pleasure is there in growing so pale over these mad pages?” If there is no further hope of reward, no better encouragement—

I say again, “break your slender pens, Thalia, and tear up your books.” Let us turn soldiers, sell our books and buy swords, guns and pikes, or use the books to stopper bottles. Let us turn our philosophers’ gowns into millers’ coats, as Cleanthes once did, leave everything and take up any other way of life rather than continue in this misery. “It is better to whittle toothpicks than to beg the favour of the great with literary works.”

Yes, but I seem to hear someone objecting to these words. What I have said about the condition of scholars, and especially the clergy, may be true: they are miserable and distressed at present, the Church’s goods are being shipwrecked, and they have just cause to complain. There is a fault—but where does it come from? If the cause were fairly examined, the charge would be turned back upon ourselves. If summoned before that tribunal of truth, we should be found guilty and unable to excuse ourselves.

I admit that there is fault among us: without a buyer, there would be no seller. But anyone who considers the matter more carefully will see plainly enough that these miseries flow from grasping patrons. In accusing them, I do not wholly excuse us. Both sides are at fault, they and we; yet in my judgement theirs is the greater fault, the more evident cause, and much to be condemned.

For my part, if my circumstances are not what I would wish or what they ought to be, I attribute the cause, as Cardano did in a similar case, “to my own misfortune rather than their wrongdoing”—to my own unhappiness rather than their wickedness. Some of them have indeed treated me with contempt in my time, and I have as good a cause to complain as anyone. Or rather, I attribute it to my own negligence.

For I have always been like that Alexander in Plutarch, Crassus’s philosophy tutor. Though he lived on familiar terms with wealthy Crassus for many years, he was just as poor when he left him—which astonished many people—as when he first arrived. He never asked; the other never gave him anything. When he travelled with Crassus, he borrowed a hat from him and returned it when they came back.

I have had some such noble friends, acquaintances and pupils; but for the most part, apart from common courtesies and ordinary marks of respect, we parted as we had met. They gave me as much as I asked for, and that was—