to the
taste, or poison to the stomach, and many flowers that seemed most
bright and gay had a worm gnawing at the root; and it was observable
that on the finest and brightest of them was seen, when looked at
through the telescope, the word _vanity_ inscribed in large
characters.

Among the chief attractions of _the things below_ were certain
little lumps of yellow clay, on which almost every eye and every
heart was fixed. When I saw the variety of uses to which this clay
could be converted, and the respect which was shown to those who
could scrape together the greatest number of pieces, I did not much
wonder at the general desire to pick up some of them; but when I
beheld the anxiety, the wakefulness, the competitions, the
contrivances, the tricks, the frauds, the scuffling, the pushing,
the turmoiling, the kicking, the shoving, the cheating, the
circumvention, the envy, the malignity, which was excited by a
desire to possess this article; when I saw the general scramble
among those who had little to get much, and of those who had much to
get more, then I could not help applying to these people a proverb
in use among us, _that gold may be bought too dear_.

Though I saw that there were various sorts of baubles which engaged
the hearts of different travelers, such as an ell of red or blue
ribbon, for which some were content to forfeit their future
inheritance, committing the sin of Esau, without his temptation of
hunger; yet the yellow clay I found was the grand object for which
most hands were scrambling, and most souls were risked. One thing
was extraordinary, that the nearer these people were to being
turned out of their tenements, the fonder they grew of these pieces
of clay; so that I naturally concluded they meant to take the clay
with them to the _far country_, to assist them in their
establishment in it; but I soon learned this clay was not current
there, the lord having further declared to these pilgrims that as
_they had brought nothing into this world, they could carry nothing
away_.

I inquired of the different people who were raising the various
heaps of clay, some of a larger, some of a smaller size, why they
discovered such unremitting anxiety, and for whom? Some, whose piles
were immense, told me they were heaping up for their children; this
I thought very right, till, on casting my eyes around, I observed
many of the children of these very people had large heaps of their
own. Others told me it wa