I suppose they had not leisure to divide these numerous
tarts, cheese-cakes, pies, and other delicate varieties; but, surprised
with the pleasantness of the taste and tired with the variety, they
left off cutting it into portions, and left all in common. And this
is confirmed from the present practice; for in our religious or public
feasts, where the food is simple and inartificial, each man hath his
mess assigned him; so that he that endeavors to retrieve the ancient
custom will likewise recover thrift and almost lost frugality again.
But, you object, where only property is, community is lost. True indeed,
where equality is not; for not the possession of what is proper and our
own, but the taking away of another's and coveting that which is common,
is the cause of all injury and contention; and the laws, restraining and
confining these within the proper bounds, receive their name from their
office, being a power distributing equally to every one in order to the
common good. Thus every one is not to be honored by the entertainer with
the garland or the chiefest place; but if any one brings with him
his sweetheart or a singing girl, they must be common to him and his
friends, that all possessions may be brought together, as Anaxagoras
would have it. Now if propriety in these things doth not in the least
hinder but that things of greater moment, and the only considerable, as
discourse and civility, may be still common, let us leave off abasing
distributions or the lot, the son of Fortune (as Euripides hath
it), which hath no respect either to riches or honor, but in its
inconsiderate wheel now and then raiseth up the humble and the poor, and
makes him master of himself, and, by accustoming the great and rich to
endure and not be offended at equality, pleasingly instructs.

BOOK III

Simonides the poet, my Sossius Senecio, seeing one of the company sit
silent and discourse nobody, said: Sir, if you are fool, it is wisely
done; if a wise man, very foolishly. It is good to conceal a man's
folly (but as Heraclitus says) it is very hard to do it over a glass of
wine,--

Which doth the gravest men to mirth advance,
And let them loose to sing, to laugh, and dance,
And speak what had been better unsaid.
("Odyssey," xiv. 464.)

In which lines the poet in my mind shows the difference between being
a little heated and downright drunk; for to sing, laugh, and dance may
agree very well with those that h