Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/127

 and I never yet liked everything, nor had all I wished, though I concealed the fact.

P. Wast thou not then miserable and unhappy enough, though conceiting thyself wealthy, when thou either hadst what thou didst dislike, or didst lack what thou desiredst?

B. All was with me as thou sayest.

P. Is not then a man miserable, when he hath not that which he fain would have?

B. That is true.

P. If then he is miserable he is not content, desiring what he hath not in order to satisfy himself.

B. All thou sayest is true.

P. Well then, was thou not also miserable in the midst of thy plenty?

Then I answered and said, 'I know thou speakest truth. I was indeed miserable.'

P. I cannot help thinking then that all the riches of the world are not able to make one single man so rich as to have enough and need no more;  and yet this is what wealth promises to all who possess it.

'Nothing,' said I, 'is truer than what thou art saying.'

P. Why, of course thou must admit it? Dost thou not every day see the strong robbing the goods of the weak? What else causes every day such lamentation and such strife, and lawsuits, and sentences, but the fact that each claims the property plundered from him, or else covets that of another?

B. A fair question, and what thou sayest is true.