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THE SECOND BOOKE 535
they enjoyne themselves. It is a kinde of death to
avoide the paine of well doing or trouble of well living.
They may have another prise, but the prise of uneasiness
methinks they never had. Nor that in difficulty
there be anything that is amid the waves of the worldly
multitude, beyond keeping himselfe upright and untainted,
answering loyally and truely discharging al
members and severall parts of his charge. It is happily
more easie for one in honest sort to neglect and passe
over all the sexe, than duely and wholly to maintaine
himselfe in his wifes company. And a man may more
incuriously fall into povertie then into plenteousnesse,
being justly dispenced. Custome, according to reason,
doth leade to more sharpnesse than abstinence hath.
Moderation is a vertue much more toylesome than
sufferance. The chaste and well living of yong Scipio
hath a thousand severall fashions; that of Diogenes
but one. This doth by so much more exceed all
ordinary lives in innocencie and unspottednesse as those
which are most exquisite and accomplished exceed in
profit and out-goe it in force.