Instructions to a Son, Chapter 9
CHAP. IX. Of Pleasure, Idleness, &c.
BY your recess from all publique business, you will be apt and prone to fall into some supiness and negligence, and indulge your self inordinate pleasures, if you keep not a strict guard over your incli…ation and bent that way to which most men naturally are very subject.
Remember therefore, that great actions were never founded in vain delights, and nothing is less generous then pleasure, and nothing more corrupting the seeds of vertue, and that finally it ends in dislike and regret.
I acknowledge, that youth the time of delight, is so transient and momentary, and man such a slave to himself, that notwithstanding all the troubles that beset him, he will find time, and space to bestow on his voluptuousness; but you have past those heats of youth, and are arrived to a staid age, in which your debordery to vice, would be most shameful and odious.
But of all pleasures take heed of gaming, that's the vainest and yet the most bewitching temptation. A vice which hath got footing amain among us, and alienated many fair lands and possessions from ancient families; you may guess at its goodness by its extraction, born (as I may say) in a dissolute camp, where its first stake was the price of life, though contented here with livings and livelihoods. You have losses more then enough already, do not therefore put any more to the injurious disposal of fortune, by dicing or carding, or any other game. That's the greatest sign of dissoluteness you can give the world, which will proclaim you a vicious as well as bankrupt person.
Give not your mind to company or drinking, these Bacchanalia are as bad a Game as the former. This will presently bestialize you, and take away the signature God hath stamp'd upon you. A drunkard! I cannot name it without abhorrence, if it devest you of your nature, it will not leave you a spark of Honour, but sink your Estate and all together, in that Deluge of Ebriety. ▪Twas observed by Cato, that none came sober to the destruction or overthrow of that State but only Caesar; most certain it is, that none shall ever be called to the maintaining of a State, whose debaucheries have made him uncapable of governing himself.
Avoid converse with women of ill report, that you be not fascinated by their beauty or arts, to the lessening of that conjugal love you owe your wife; men take it for a felicity to enjoy the favour of the company of fine women, but they reckon not to what dangers they oblige themselves, and what burdens they impose upon themselves to the secret ruin of their Estates, for nothing is so chargeable as an imperious beauty.
Neither seek nor entertain pleasures when they present themselves in their gaudy bravery, but with a noble constancy keep your mind fast shut against their charmes and allurements; but find some other diversion, the business whereof may send those vagrants packing. I do much commend Hunting and Hawking, and other field pastime.
'Tis a dispute and an argument, whether to do ill or to do nothing, Male agere aut nihil agere, is the worst, and therefore in the next place shun Idleness. The life of man resembles Iron, which being wrought into instruments and used, becomes bright and shining, else unwrought the rust eats and consumes it; so is it with noble persons, if they exert themselves, and put forth their parts to the service of their Country or in other honourable employments, they become conspicuously glorious; better, industry should wear out and so polish a man, then to lye by of no use and service, and wast away in sloth and idleness.
Nothing in the universe stands still, the Heavens and those orbes of light are in perpetual motion, and though the Earth move not sphaerically, (as Copernicus fancied) yet there is a continual motus in that too in her productions: An idle man is a Mare mortuum, whose infectious company spoils and ruins all that come near his example. I do not admire to see Gentlemen given over to vicious courses of life, seeing they affect a lazy greatness, without the props of employment to support it. 'Tis action that keeps the soul sweet and sound.
I would have you keep no retainers neer you meerly for show, but onelyonly as many as you can well employ in their several offices; if you do, you must expect no service nor attendance, till they have first served their own pleasures, and besides you will have to answer for their lewdnesses.
You will have such a fragrancy and sent from any business you have been diligent in, as those that stir amongst perfumes and spices, shall when they are gone, have still a grateful odor with them.
If you grow not better by employing your self, yet this benefit will surely accrue to you, that you both keep your self from being worse, and shall not have time to entertain any suggestions of evil from without.
There is a kind of good Angel waiting upon diligence, that ever carries a Laurel in his hand to crown her; and fortune according to the Ancients was not to be prayed unto, but with the hands in motion. How unworthy was that man of the world, or the enjoyments of it that never did ought, but only lived and died; and it is none of the ordinariest happiness, to be endued with a mind that loves noble and vertuous exercises.
Life and Honour consist both in action, nor can they find a worse sepulchre then in the sluggards field. 'Tis by such slothful men that the monuments of their Ancestors crumble into dust, and tombestones are obsolited by the speechless lives of their successors and children.