Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/82

78 and other foolish ways. And my guide says to me: "Here hast thou that noble human race, that delightful creation, which has been granted sense and immortality. How it bears on it the image of the infinite God, and the likeness to Him, that wilt thou recognise by the variety of His creations. As in a looking-glass wilt thou see the worth of this thy human race."

3. I then look at them more carefully, and see directly that everyone in the crowd, when walking among the others, wore a mask on his face; but on going away, when he was alone, or among his equals, he pulled it off, and when he had to go among the throng, he again fastened it on. And I ask what this means. The guide answered: "That, my dear son, is worldly prudence, so that each man may not show to all what he is. Alone in his home a man may be as he is, but before others it is beseeming that he appear affable, and that he assume a mien." Then the desire befell me more carefully to watch how these people might be without this dissembling covering.

4. And looking attentively at this, I see that both in their face and in their bodies all are in various ways deformed. Almost all were pimpled, mangy, or leprous; and besides, this one had a