Your rustic is no philosopher, and your provincial
townsman is the devil: if you would meditate in Arden, your company
must be the Duke, Jaques, Touchstone--courtiers all--or, again,
Rosalind, the Duke's daughter, if you would catch the very mood of
the forest. I tell you this, child, that you may not be misled by my
example (which has a reason of its own and, I trust, an excuse) into
shunning your destiny though it lead and keep you in cities and among
crowds; for we have it on the word of no less busy a man than the
Emperor Marcus Aurelius that to seek out private retiring-rooms for
the soul such as country villages, the sea-shore, mountains, is but a
mistaken simplicity, seeing that at what time soever a man will it is
in his power to retire into himself and be at rest, dwelling within
the walls of a city as in a shepherd's fold of the mountain. So also
the sainted Juan de Avila tells us that a man who trusts in God may,
if he take pains, recollect God in streets and public places better
than will a hermit in his cell; and the excellent Archbishop of
Cambrai, writing to the Countess of Gramont, counselled her to
practise recollection and give a quiet thought to God at dinner times
in a lull of the conversation, or again when she was driving or
dressing or having her hair arranged; these hindrances (said he)
profited more than any _engouement_ of devotion.
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