Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/310

288 in an ecstasy with admiration thereof, and brake out in these words:

But Socrates or Diogenes would have said thus rather:

And what sayst thou, foolish and vain sot as thou art? Whereas thou shouldest have taken from thy very wife her purple, her jewels and gaudy ornaments, to the end that she might no more long for such superfluity, nor run a madding after foreign vanities, far fetched and dear bought; dost thou contrariwise embellish and adorn thy house, like a theatre, scaffold and stage to make a goodly sight for those that come into the shew-place? Lo, wherein lieth the felicity and happiness that riches bringeth, making a trim shew before those who gaze upon them, and to testify and report to others what they have seen: set this aside (that they be not shewed to all the world) there is nothing at all therein to reckon. But it is not so with temperance, with philosophy, with the true knowledge of the gods, so far forth as is meet and behoveful to be known, for these are the same still and all one, although every man attain not thereto but all others be ignorant thereof. This piety (I say) and religion hath always a great light of her own and resplendent beams proper to itself, wherewith it doth shine in the soul, evermore accompanied with a certain joy that never ceaseth to take contentment in her own good within, whether any one see it or no, whether it be unknown to gods and men or no, it skilleth not. Of this kind and nature is virtue indeed, and truth, the beauty also of the mathematical sciences, to wit, geometry and astrology; unto which who will think that the gorgeous trappings and caparisons, the brooches, collars and carkans of riches are any ways comparable, which (to say a truth) are no better than jewels and ornaments good to trim young brides and set out maidens for to be seen and looked at? For riches, if no man do regard, behold, and set their eyes on them (to say a truth), is a blind