And this emulation is not confined to mechanics and those who follow the same occupations; but the rich man envies the learned. He that hath a bright reputation envies the miser’s guineas, and the pettifogger thinks he is outdone in talking by the sophister. Nay, by Heaven, he that is born free sottishly admires the servile attendance of him who is of the household to a king; and the man that hath patrician blood in his veins calls the comedian happy who acts his part gracefully and with humor, and applauds even the mimic who pleaseth with farce and scaramouchy gestures; thus by a false estimate of happiness they disturb and perplex themselves. 14. Now that every man hath a storehouse of trouble and contentment in his own bosom, and that the vessels which contain good and evil are not placed at Jupiter’s threshold,[88] but in the recesses of the mind, the variety of our passions is an abundant demonstration. The fool doth not discern, and consequently cannot mind, the good that is obvious to him, for his thoughts are still intent upon the future; but the prudent man retrieves things that were lost out of their oblivion, by strength of recollection renders them perspicuous, and enjoys them as if they were present. Happiness having only a few coy minutes to be courted in, the man that hath no intellect neglects this opportunity, and so it slides away from his sense and no more belongs to him. But like him that is painted in hell twisting a rope, and who lets the ass that is by him devour all the laborious textures as fast as he makes them, so most men have such a lethargy of forgetfulness upon them, that they lose the remembrance of all great actions, and no more call to mind their pleasant intervals of leisure and repose. The relish of their former banquets is grown insipid, and delight hath left no piquant impression upon their palates; by this means they break as it were the continuity of life, and destroy the union of present things to the past; and dividing yesterday from to-day and to-day from to-morrow, they utterly efface all events, as if they had never been. For, as those who are dogmatical in the schools, and deny the augmentation of bodies by reason of the perpetual flux of all substance, do strip us out of ourselves and make no man to be the same to-day that he was yesterday; so those who bury all things that have preceded them in oblivion, who lose all the notices of former times and let them all be shattered carelessly out of their minds, do every day make themselves void and empty; and they become utterly dependent on the morrow, as if those things which happened last year and yesterday and the day before were not to affect their cognizance and be occurrences worthy their observation.