not have
pretended if they had been more meanly clothed; and even resent it as an
affront, if that respect is not paid them. It is also a great folly to
be taken with outward marks of respect, which signify nothing: for what
true or real pleasure can one man find in another's standing bare, or
making legs to him? Will the bending another man's knees give ease to
yours? And will the head's being bare cure the madness of yours? And yet
it is wonderful to see how this false notion of pleasure bewitches many
who delight themselves with the fancy of their nobility, and are pleased
with this conceit, that they are descended from ancestors, who have been
held for some successions rich, and who have had great possessions; for
this is all that makes nobility at present; yet they do not think
themselves a whit the less noble, though their immediate parents have
left none of this wealth to them, or though they themselves have
squandered it away. The Utopians have no better opinion of those who are
much taken with gems and precious stones, and who account it a degree of
happiness, next to a divine one, if they can purchase one that is very
extraordinary; especially if it be of that sort of stones that is then
in greatest request; for the same sort is not at all times universally
of the same value; nor will men buy it unless it be dismounted and taken
out of the gold; the jeweller is then made to give good security, and
required solemnly to swear that the stone is true, that by such an exact
caution a false one might not be bought instead of a true: though if you
were to examine it, your eye could find no difference between the
counterfeit and that which is true; so that they are all one to you as
much as if you were blind. Or can it be thought that they who heap up an
useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but
merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true
pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a false shadow of joy.
Those are no better whose error is somewhat different from the former,
and who hide it, out of their fear of losing it; for what other name can
fit the hiding it in the earth, or rather the restoring it to it again,
it being thus cut off from being useful, either to its owner or to the
rest of mankind? And yet the owner having hid it carefully, is glad,
because he thinks he is now sure of it. If it should be stole, the
owner, though he might live perhaps ten ye