Your fearfulness, (says the Prefect) surprises me. Tell me, I pray, what idea hast thou of what is called grandeur, dignities, and high rank in a state? I am in this world (answered I) like a traveller, who goes on his way curiously observing the objects, but desiring none, because he is but a passenger. Moreover, if things are estimated according to the happiness they procure, I do not think that the highest places should be much valued; for, I see, they make no man happy, and are a misfortune to many.
254What of riches? added the Prefect.
Pleasure (said I) is like a very rare commodity, which, however, every one would fain purchase. Among those that succeed, the rich buy it very dear, it comes cheap to the rest: One may as well be among the last as the first. Of the few pleasures that exist, the lower class enjoy as large a share as the highest.
What of wit, genius, talents? says the Prefect.
One half of the world, replied I, study to amuse the other. The first class is formed of men of talents; whose brains are wound up by nature higher than ordinary. They are incessantly striving to please: If they fail, 255they waste away with grief; if they succeed, it is never fully, and a single censure creates them more pain than all the encomiums together give them pleasure. It is, therefore, better to be of the second class, I mean among those who are amused by the others.
As far as I see, said the Prefect, the aspect of the great and their pomp, of the scholar and his extensive genius, of the rich and his vast possessions, makes little or no impression on thy mind.
I confess, replied I, that no man was ever less dazzled with all this than myself. Wrapt in a certain coolness of sense, I am guarded against all strong impressions. I behold with the same eye the i............