"Essays" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bacon Francis)

inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure, to
stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a
pleasure, to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and
the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the
standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded,
and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the
errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below; so
always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling, or
pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move
in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological, and philosophical truth, to the truth of
civil business; it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise
it not, that clear, and round dealing, is the honor of man's nature;
and that mixture of falsehoods, is like alloy in coin of gold and
silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth
it. For these winding, and crooked courses, are the goings of the
serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet.
There is no vice, that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be
found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily,
when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such
a disgrace, and such an odious charge? Saith he, If it be well
weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is
brave towards God, and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God,
and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood, and breach
of faith, cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it
shall be the last peal, to call the judgments of God upon the
generations of men; it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, he
shall not find faith upon the earth.

OF DEATH

Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that
natural fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other.
Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and
passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it,
as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations,
there is sometimes mixture of vanity, and of superstition. You shall
read, in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should
think with himself, what the pain is, if he have but his finger's
end pressed, or tortured, and thereby imagine, what the pains of death
are, when the whole body is corrupted, and dissolved; when many
times death passeth, with less pain than the torture of a limb; for
the most vital parts, are not the quickest of sense. And by him that
spake only as a philosopher, and natural man, it was well said,
Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa. Groans, and convulsions,
and a discolored face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies,
and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that
there is no passion in the mind of man, so weak, but it mates, and
masters, the fear of death; and therefore, death is no such terrible