No man finds poverty a trouble to him, but he that thinks it so; and he that thinks it so, makes it so. Does not a rich man travel more at ease with less luggage, and fewer servants? Does he not eat many times as little and as coarse in the field as a poor man? Does he not for his own pleasure, sometimes, and for variety, feed upon the ground, and use only earthen vessels? Is not he a madman then, that always fears what he often desires, and dreads the thing that he takes delight to imitate: he that would know the worst of poverty, let him but compare the looks of the rich and of the poor, and he shall find the poor man to have a smoother brow, and to be more merry at heart; or if any trouble befalls him, it passes over like a cloud: whereas the other, either his good humor is counterfeit, or his melancholy deep and ulcerated, and the worse, because he dares not publicly own his misfortune; but he is forced to play the part of a happy man even with a cancer in his heart. His felicity is but personated; and if he were but stripped of his ornaments, he would be contemptible. In buying of a horse, we take off his clothes and his trappings, and examine his shape and body for fear of being cozened; and shall we put an estimate upon a man for being set off by his fortune and quality? Nay, if we see anything of ornament about him, we are to suspect him the more for some infirmity under it. He that is not content in poverty, would not be so neither in plenty; for the fault is not in the thing, but in the mind. If that be sickly, remove him from a kennel to a palace, he is at the same pass; for he carries his disease along with him. What can be happier than the condition both of mind and of fortune from which we cannot fall—what can be a greater felicity than in a covetous, designing age, for a roan to live safe among informers and thieves? It puts a poor man into the very condition of Providence, that gives all, without reserving anything to itself. How happy is he that owes nothing but to himself, and only that which he can easily refuse or easily pay! I do not reckon him poor that has but a little, but he is so that covets more—it is a fair degree of plenty to have what is necessary. Whether had a man better find satiety in want, or hunger in plenty? It is not the augmenting of our fortunes, but the abating of our appetites that makes us rich.