United States or French Polynesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"It has not the flaming raptures of the mystical Gothic, which finds utterance in all these soaring shafts of stone; the Romanesque lives self-centred, in reserved fervour, brooding in the depths of the soul. It may be summed up in this saying of Saint Isaac's: In mansuetudine et in tranquillitate, simplifica animam tuam."
In the Constantio Sapientis he praises and holds up to imitation the absurd apathy recommended by Stilpo. In the De Animi Tranquillitate, addressed to Annaeus Serenus, the captain of Nero's body- guard, he adopts the same line of thought, but shows signs of limiting its application by the necessities of circumstances.
It is entitled De Animi Tranquillitate . I earnestly desire tranquillity. Bona res quies: but I fear I shall never attain it: for, when unoccupied, I grow gloomy, and occupation agitates me to feverishness. 'I am, dear Sir, 'Your most affectionate humble servant, 'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
Seneca, De Tranquillitate, c. ix. There are some good hits here, which would tell at the present day. Seneca is reported to have had a large library; it is certain that he possessed and fully enjoyed enormous wealth; and it is amusing to find this commendation of literary moderation following on a well-known passage in praise of parsimonious living, and of the good example set by Diogenes.
Florence Wilson accompanied, as tutor, Cardinal Wolsey's nephew to Paris, and published at Lyons in 1543 his De Tranquillitate Animi Dialogus. Rose's Biog. Dict. xii. 508. When Johnson visited Boswell in Edinburgh, Mrs. Boswell 'insisted that, to show all respect to the Sage, she would give up her own bed-chamber to him, and take a worse. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 14. See post, April 18, 1778.
Word Of The Day