Yet this is that wherewith the world is
taken, and runs mad to gaze on--clothes and titles, the birdlime of
fools.
De stultitia.--What petty things they are we wonder at, like
children that esteem every trifle, and prefer a fairing before their
fathers! What difference is between us and them but that we are
dearer fools, coxcombs at a higher rate? They are pleased with
cockleshells, whistles, hobby-horses, and such like; we with
statues, marble pillars, pictures, gilded roofs, where underneath is
lath and lime, perhaps loam. Yet we take pleasure in the lie, and
are glad we can cozen ourselves. Nor is it only in our walls and
ceilings, but all that we call happiness is mere painting and gilt,
and all for money. What a thin membrane of honour that is! and how
hath all true reputation fallen, since money began to have any! Yet
the great herd, the multitude, that in all other things are divided,
in this alone conspire and agree--to love money. They wish for it,
they embrace it, they adore it, while yet it is possessed with
greater stir and torment than it is gotten.
De sibi molestis.--Some men what losses soever they have they make
them greater, and if they have none, even all that is not gotten is
a loss.
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