may be their splendour, remember the flashing light is in the jewels,
not in the man. Indeed, I greatly marvel at men's admiration of them;
for what can rightly seem beautiful to a being endowed with life and
reason, if it lack the movement and structure of life? And although such
things do in the end take on them more beauty from their Maker's care
and their own brilliancy, still they in no wise merit your admiration
since their excellence is set at a lower grade than your own.

'Does the beauty of the fields delight you? Surely, yes; it is a
beautiful part of a right beautiful whole. Fitly indeed do we at times
enjoy the serene calm of the sea, admire the sky, the stars, the moon,
the sun. Yet is any of these thy concern? Dost thou venture to boast
thyself of the beauty of any one of them? Art _thou_ decked with
spring's flowers? is it _thy_ fertility that swelleth in the fruits of
autumn? Why art thou moved with empty transports? why embracest thou an
alien excellence as thine own? Never will fortune make thine that which
the nature of things has excluded from thy ownership. Doubtless the
fruits of the earth are given for the sustenance of living creatures.
But if thou art content to supply thy wants so far as suffices nature,
there is no need to resort to fortune's bounty. Nature is content with
few things, and with a very little of these. If thou art minded to force
superfluities upon her when she is satisfied, that which thou addest
will prove either unpleasant or harmful. But, now, thou thinkest it
fine to shine in raiment of divers colours; yet--if, indeed, there is
any pleasure in the sight of such things--it is the texture or the
artist's skill which I shall admire.

'Or perhaps it is a long train of servants that makes thee happy? Why,
if they behave viciously, they are a ruinous burden to thy house, and
exceeding dangerous to their own master; while if they are honest, how
canst thou count other men's virtue in the sum of thy possessions? From
all which 'tis plainly proved that not one of these things which thou
reckonest in the number of thy possessions is really thine. And if there
is in them no beauty to be desired, why shouldst thou either grieve for
their loss or find joy in their continued possession? While if they are
beautiful in their own nature, what is that to thee? They would have
been not less pleasing in themselves, though never included among thy
possessions. For they derive not their preciou