his
friend, to see a country fair; where he saw ribbons, and
looking-glasses, and nut-crackers, and fiddles, and hobby-horses, and
many other gimcracks; and, having observed them, and all the other
finnimbruns that make a complete country-fair, he said to his friend,
"Lord, how many things are there in this world of which Diogenes hath no
need!" And truly it is so, or might be so, with very many who vex and
toil themselves to get what they have no need of. Can any man charge
God, that he hath not given him enough to make his life happy? No,
doubtless; for nature is content with a little. And yet you shall hardly
meet with a man that complains not of some want; though he, indeed,
wants nothing but his will; it may be, nothing but his will of his poor
neighbour, for not worshipping, or not flattering him: and thus, when we
might be happy and quiet, we create trouble to ourselves. I have heard
of a man that was angry with himself because he was no taller; and of a
woman that broke her looking-glass because it would not show her face to
be as young and handsome as her next neighbour's was. And I knew another
to whom God had given health and plenty; but a wife that nature had made
peevish, and her husband's riches had made purse-proud; and must,
because she was rich, and for no other virtue, sit in the highest pew in
the church; which being denied her, she engaged her husband into a
contention for it, and at last into a lawsuit with a dogged neighbour
who was as rich as he, and had a wife as peevish and purse-proud as the
other: and this lawsuit begot higher oppositions, and actionable words,
and more vexations and lawsuits; for you must remember that both were
rich, and must therefore have their wills. Well! this wilful,
purse-proud lawsuit lasted during the life of the first husband; after
which his wife vext and chid, and chid and vext, till she also chid and
vext herself into her grave: and so the wealth of these poor rich people
was curst into a punishment, because they wanted meek and thankful
hearts; for those only can make us happy. I knew a man that had health
and riches; and several houses, all beautiful, and ready furnished; and
would often trouble himself and family to be removing from one house to
another: and being asked by a friend why he removed so often from one
house to another, replied, "It was to find content in some one of them."
But his friend, knowing his temper, told him, "If he would find content
in a