Digital Donne: the Online Variorum
The 1654 Prose Letters Letter 21, cont. (p.62) |
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number of small wretched points, uselesse, because they concurre not: A life built of past and future, not proposing any constant present; they have more pleasures then we, but not more pleasure; they joy oftner, we longer; and no man but of so much under- standing as may deliver him from being a fool, would change with a mad-man, which had a better proportion of wit in his often Lucidis. You know, they which dwell farthest from the Sun, if in any con- venient distance, have longer daies, better appetites, better digestion, better growth, and longer life: And all these advantages have their mindes who are well removed from the scorchings, and dazlings, and ex- halings of the worlds glory: but neither of our lives are in such extremes; for you living at Court without ambition, which would burn you, or envy, which would devest others, live in the Sun, not in the fire: And I which live in the Country without stupefying, am not in darknesse, but in sha- dow, which is not no light, but a pallid, [CW: wa-] |
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