Reconditorium ac reclusorium opulentiae sapientiaeque numinis mundi magni, cui deditur in titulum chymica vannus, obtenta quidem & erecta auspice mortale coepto ... (1666) - Page 14

moroseness, but oh, the wicked and deadly demons of the sons of Adam! The poor man speaks with entreaties, while the rich man speaks with authority; for whatever they say, whatever they do, is praised and accepted by everyone, whether it is done well or ill.

No bad man is happy, for who does not make himself clever with wealth?

This single fact stirs up the most mournful tears and thoughts.

Alas, shameful poverty, nothing in you is harder,

Than that you make men ridiculous and bleating like sheep!

12. Sometimes I would also say to myself, truly fortune favors fools, and even today it happens in the world, just as in the Solomonic age, that animals are valued more than the learned and the lettered.

Entire towns worship dogs, no one worships Diana.

The lords of the manor are pleasing, the wretched lie low, the learned and wise are fit to be buried. Great merchants of sulfurous goods are held in higher regard than Plato himself.

A well-dressed man, because of his clothes, is believed

To be skilled by a thousand people, even if he is a fool.

If you lack clothes, and are not dressed honestly;

If your hat is worn out, if your cloak is foul and torn,

If your toga is dirty, and one shoe is open,

Revealing your skin, or if, with a stitched wound, the thick

And fresh thread reveals more than one scar,

You receive no praise, even if you possess everything you hear.

13. Meanwhile, however, while I dispute with myself in such a witty way, there occurred repeatedly from that truly golden little book (which, under my own auspices, as much by the robust sap of the matter and the gravity of the sentences as by the secret pull of the Holy Spirit, easily carries off the palm from all the volumes of the world touching on similar material, and, from the moment I saw and read it, it has always been uniquely pleasing to my heart)