Besides this, riches are the thing that taketh many times from its master all his pleasure and his life, too. For many a man is slain for his riches. And some keep their riches as a thing pleasant and commodious for their life, take none other pleasure of it in all their life than as though they bore the key of another man's coffer. For they are content to live miserably in neediness all their days, rather than to find it in their heart to diminish their hoard, they have such a fancy to look thereon. Yea, and some men, for fear lest thieves should steal it from them, are their own thieves and steal it from themselves. For they dare not so much as let it lie where they themselves may look on it, but put it in a pot and hide it in the ground, and there let it lie safe till they die--and sometimes seven years thereafter. And if the pot had been stolen away from that place five years before the man's death, then all the same five years he lived thereafter, thinking always that his pot lay safe still, since he never occupied it afterward, what had he been the poorer? VINCENT: By my troth, uncle, not one penny, for aught that I perceive. IX ANTHONY: Let us now consider good name, honest estimation, and honourable fame. For these three things are of their own nature one, and take their differences in effect only of the manner of the common speech in diversity of degree. For a good name may a man have, be he never so poor. Honest estimation, in the common understanding of the people, belongeth not unto any man but him that is taken for one of some countenance and possessions, and among his neighbours had in some reputation. In the word of "honourable fame," folk conceive the renown of great estates, much and far spoken of, by reason of their laudable acts. Now, all this gear, used as a thing pleasant and commodious for this present life, may seem pleasant to him who fasteneth his fancy thereon. But of the nature of the thing itself I perceive no great commodity that it hath--I say of the nature of the thing itself, because it may by chance be some occasion of some commodity. For it may hap that for the good name the poor man hath, or for the honest estimation that a man of some possessions and substance standeth in among his neighbours, or for the honourable fame with which a great estate is renowned--it may hap, I say, that some man, bearing them the better, will therefore do them some good. And yet, as for that, like as it may sometimes so hap (and sometimes doth so hap indeed), so may it hap sometimes on the other hand (and on the other hand so it sometimes happeth indeed) that such folk are envied and hated by others, and as readily take harm by them who envy and hate them as they take good by them that love them.