The vanity of the worldThe vanity of the vvorld

For what is a furnished Table to him whose constant meals overtake one another, but only the heaping of food upon crudities and indigestion? What are titles of Honour to ⟨p. 45⟩a person born noble? They signify no more to him, than it doth to another man, when he hears himself called by his ordinary name. What is respect and honour to a man long accustomed to it? It brings him no great content when he hath it, but torments him when he fails of it. Give these things to those that are unacquainted with them, if you would have them valued. Bring a poor man to a table of Delicates; invest an ignoble person with Honours and Dignities; give respect to a despised person, and for the present you bless them. But time and custom will wear off this content: And the ^btediousness even of such a life as this will make them willing at least for their divertisement and recreation, ⟨p. 46⟩to ^cretire to their homely Cells and Station. For as it is with those that are accustomed to strong perfumes, they themselves cannot scent those odours, which to others that use them not, are most sweet and fragrant: So it fares with us in the long continuance of worldly enjoyments; our senses are so stuffed and even suffocated with them, that we cannot perceive them; and unless we purchase pleasures by alternate sorrow, they are but lost upon us. Now how vain must the world needs be, whose comforts are not valuable while we have them, but while we have them not? And how vain are those joys, for which we must pay down as much grief, as the joys themselves ⟨p. 47⟩are worth? So that upon balancing the account there remains nothing to us: And it had been altogether as good to have enjoyed nothing.

For what is a furnisht Table to him whose constant meals overtake one another, but onely the heaping of food upon crudities and indigestion? What are titles of Honour to ⟨p. 45⟩