Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	passion_n	zeal_n	zealous_a	50	3	9.7417	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78017	Balzac's remaines, or, His last letters· Written to severall grand and eminent persons in France. Whereunto are annexed the familiar letters of Monsieur de Balzac to his friend Monsieur Chapelain. Never before in English.; Correspondence. English. Selections	Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez, seigneur de, 1597-1654.; Chapelain, Jean, 1595-1674.; Dring, Thomas.	1658 (1658)	Wing B616; Thomason E1779_1; ESTC R209057	331,826	458

bestow on me but I had only one heart to give you the propriety of which I offered to you eighteen years ago and you had gain'd it sometime before It is true the present was but trivial I am ashamed to put you in mind now that great hearts are so necessary in great enterprizes and unless you reckon a great deal of passion and zeal for something I should not in time of War have mention'd a toy of so little use as that Yet my Lord is there no place for a violent passion in your service Cannot a zealous spirit produce some thoughts couragious enough to venter beyond the prospect of our present age and more Noble then to injure the glory of your great Name There are some persons over-credulons in my favour as to imagine so and I were very happy if their perswasions were not upon bad grounds As it is the most ambitious of all my designes so it is also the most ardent of all my desires But herein I must confess I can but little satisfie my self For what ever indulgent friends say I have little encouragement to believe from the view of my sufficiencies I discover neither a Mine nor a Bank in my brain to suffice for the recompence of supream vertue for requitall of heroicke actions and for the price of that which is inestimable On the other side I want that other facultie which descends from above and is called Enthusiasme The muses do not answer me at all times when I call them and I have often times begun Poems that ended at the Invocation It is possible I shall be better inspired for the future The excellencies of invention may at length be infused into me from Heaven and I may have my part of those illuminations it sends down to our brethren of the Academy I attend this happy hour of inspiration with impatience that I may employ it well and I cannot live contented till I have testified by some eminent act of gratitude pardon that eminent upon this occasion that I am as I ought to be My LORD Your c. Feb. 25. 1645. LETTER VIII To my Lord the Arch-Bishop of Thoulose My Lord THE successes of which I receiv'd information from your Letter redoun'd so much to your glory that Honouring you perfectly as I do I could not receive them with a moderate joy You have had justice at length of the Senate but it was the same Senate that did it you You do not only receive the just Honours that are due to you but even with the consent of them who disputed them with you by one and the same victory you have gain'd both your cause and your adversaries affection So though the conquest be desireable but the peace far better nothing should be wanting to your satisfaction who have obtained at once both the Good and the Better It remaines now my Lord that you enjoy this faire calme and these dayes of Serenity you have made such that is employ them all in that harvest that respects you and in the conduct of that flock which Jesus CHRIST hath entrusted to your care If you would you might have climb'd to Glory by other steps But all things being considered this is the surest and shortest for him that aimes at nothing but Heaven Could you exceed Cardinal Baronio in the solidity of your learning yet it is better to follow Cardinal Borromeo in the Sanctity of your Life and be the subject of others writings then the Historian of their actions How happy do I esteem the meanest labourers that you use in your great work and I cannot express how it troubles me to be perpetually desirous of being with you and yet to stick fast here and to be able to profess to you only with wishes and idle passions I know not when that I am more then any person in the World My Lord Your c. Jul. 25. 1633. LETTER IX To the same My Lord I Perceive there is no possibility for me to execute my grand enterprize or to effect what I have had in designe these ten yeares My journey to Languedoc is likely to become the exercise of a man that stirs not or the dreame of one awake If Heaven will have it so I shall at least have this happiness nothing can hinder me the enjoying in my mind the contentment which I fancy My imagination that hath power to bring me neer to places where I desire to be walks me continually round about this distant happiness and puts me into possession of one of the apartments of your Palace and soon after lodges me even in your Library O how I contemne the Jasper and guildings of the Escuriall when I am in that Cabinet This indeed is to inhabite a more Noble and stately Court to be the guest of an infinite number of rare souls and blessed intelligences where after a repast of Tanzies and Mellons the entertainment might be with light and truth I do not seek out high words to abuse them I employ them in their proper and naturall signification for what is there My Lord which the desire of knowledge and ambition of learning can imagine exquisite and rare but is to be found either in your books or conversation those three or four hours I had the honour to pass with you presented to me the riches of ages and antiquity you taught me things which not only the commonalty of the learned are ignorant of but such as it may be the Princes of the Schools understand not The severall manuscripts your goodness daign'd to shew me left so faire an impression of Christianity upon my soul that immediately I divorced my self from my old Loves and bad adieu to all the muses that are not holy Since that time I speak nothing but of the Primitive Church and the Oecumenicall Councells and you have so alienated me from Pagan-Rome that in those places of History where I meet with Aquilae I am sometimes ready to change it into Labarum A communication of such advantage deserves to be sought though it were at the end of the World and a thousand leagues are nothing to be travelled for it To confess freely the voyages of the Graecian Philosophers into Aegypt do very much reproach my immobilitie It is necessary that I rouze up this Lethargy or to speak more humanely that I prop up this weakness and provide redress to this infirmity and since it is impossible it should endure a Coach unless in a Downe or a Meadow I am at this instant going to purchase a Litter to make it more capable of the journey and transport me without disturbance to the feet of a greater Master then Gamaliel The ambition of a spirit cured of the Court may well be terminated there where I shall receive your answers to my Questions after I have rendred you my respects and sworne to you in the presence of Eusebius Theodoret and such like kind of witnesses that I am ever perfectly My Lord Your

of heaven at the distance of a league and halfe from hence The treasures of the Church flow in torrents from your Lips You deal out your largesses every morning while I am tormented that these good things are done in my absence and am so out of favour that no one drop of these inundations reaches me The people receive the benefits and I only hear the newes of them I who presum'd my self your confident who would and am not able to be neer you This is to tell you Reverend father that there is a superiour force against which we are too feeble and inevitable mischiefs which meet us when we would flye them Your divinity shall pardon me this errour if you please I now acknowledge that fatal necessity in my own person too I feel the violences and chaines of destiny which captive the most arbitrary and independent The world is so importunate it does not allow a man leisure to say his prayers and its importunity proceeds so far sometimes to that curiosity that it is troublesome even in the bosome of the desart It seeks out men in a place where it is written over the door that there is no body within that it is the Mansion of silence the Sanctuary of sloath At our first meeting I shall expound this last article and lay open my moanes to you to receive your comforts I am with passion Reverend father Your c. Mar. 4. 1646. LETTER XXII To Monsieur de Souchotte SIR VVHatsoever opinion you have of the Barbarism of our climate we are not so contemptible at Rome but her largesses arrive to us nor so little curious of rarity as not to obtain a Jubile as well as you Your Letter having found me in this good mind had no great difficulty to perswade me to that good work you request of me I shall be very glad to please you in my obedience to the Church and do an act of Religion that may either acquire or recover me a friend to the merits of Monsieur de Saint Germain It is not possible for me to hate him being as I am a member of the body of the Faithful and if I had not esteem'd him I should not be in the Catalogue of the reasonable Oblige me therefore by assuring him of my affection and respects after you have told him that I have sent you my injuries and my resentments to be laid upon the altar whereon he makes his vowes and sacrifices that is the Altar of Peace and Love he must offer on it both for himself and me all our froward passions and all the sowreness and bitterness of our spirits I am resolved not to contribute to the continuance of disorder or nourish my self with the quintessence of gall nor grow old in a bad constance You may adde as many civilities as you please to this Christian protestation I make this universall profession to you that I am without reserve SIR Your c. Ap. 25. 1645. LETTER XXIII To Monsieur Perrot d'Ablancourt SIR YOu will perceive by the Copy of what you requested of me in what manner I determine our compliance to the present state of affaires and what has ever been my opinion del tempo della signoria The Letter is of an ancient date as you know already it was written to a man who had need of the like advice but made very ill use of what I gave him for some few yeares afterwards being engaged in the revolt of Rochell he died in a Sea-fight wherein he commanded a vessell against the King It might be said of him that he Renowned himselfe in his destruction and that he shewd miracles of courage had he not done them in a bad cause and had not his valour been his crime Ah quantâ Virtute scelus defendis Amice Quam fortis reus atque invito qualia Marte Neptuno mirante geris But when shall we peruse your History in the condition you will suffer it to be seen I expect it impatiently that we may have a French Alexander as stout as brave and as couragious in his words as the Macedonian was in his actions You know what was said of the pourtraiture of this that of the two Alexanders the son of Philip was invincible and that of Apelles inimitable You may make the application your selfe to your excellent work For my part I shall not lesse esteem Alexander the book then Alexander the Captaine and be all my life with passion SIR Your c. Jun. 5. 1645. LETTER XXIIII To Monsieur de Bourdigal Candé SIR IS not a defluxion of these six weekes continuance which hath made a fountain of my head and a Chollick that succeeded it to rend my entrailes with a thousand troublesome businesses besides that have overburden'd me at the same time sufficient in your opinion to excuse my silence Lesse then all this could not have made me break my word and had I been capable of society you should have known at the beginning of October not only that I admire the Eloquence of your Letters but I have communicated my admiration to all the wits within ten Leagues of me I am not able to say more to you of it and I beseech you Sir do not take it ill that I send you not my Comments on the Relation of your friend I am in a house where Policy medles not with any other affaires but those of Camillus Fabricius and Scipio By the orders of our Land-lord it is confined within the decades of Livy nay the neighbouring History of Augustus is prohibited it is not lawfull to descend so low as the quarrells of Sylla and Marius or of Pompey and Caesar The Trium-virate must not so much as be glanced upon so great a fear there is of approaching neerer and becoming curious in comparing Ages and Countries I confesse this is a very nice restraint and in a manner turning of us into another world but you must also confesse that your friend is very inquisitive after great secrets and sick of Intrigues and newes What account would he have me give him of that which is done above me of the hurly burly and tempests of humane affaires I look upon the troubled Aire and raging Sea without murmuring at Juno and execrations against Thetis I am a witnesse and not a judge of the life of Princes and though I did not approve their conduct which is distasted where you are I would at least stick fast to that old oracle Bona tempora voto expetere qualiacunque tolerare and to that more moderne but not lesse true though translated by Apollo into Kitchin Latin Bene loqui de superiore Facere officium suum taliter qualiter sinere ire res quomodo vadunt had I any houres free from paine I would hold you longer but I have only moments of relaxation and I must make use of this to assure you that I am ever really SIR Your c. Oct. 30. 1617. LETTER XXV To Monsieur the Count