THERE are two sorts of avarice; the one is but of a bastard kind; and
that is, the rapacious appetite of gain, not for its own sake, but for
the pleasure of refunding it immediately through all the channels of
pride and luxury. The other is the true kind, and properly so called;
which is a restless and unsatiable desire of riches, not for any further
end of use, but only to hoard, and preserve, and perpetually increase
them. The covetous man of the first kind is like a greedy ostrich, which
devours any metal, but it is with an intent to feed upon it, and in
effect it makes a shift to digest and excern it. The second is like the
foolish chough, which loves to steal money only to hide it. The first
does much harm to mankind, and a little good too, to some few. The
second does good to none; no, not to himself. The first can make no
excuse to God, or angels, or rational men for his actions. The second
can give no reason or colour, not to the devil himself, for what he does:
he is a slave to Mammon without wages. The first makes a shift to be
beloved; aye, and envied, too, by some people. The second is the
universal object of hatred and contempt. There is no vice has been so
pelted with good sentences, and especially by the poets, who have pursued
it with stories and fables, and allegories and allusions; and moved, as
we say, every stone to fling at it, among all which, I do not remember a
more fine and gentlemen-like correction than that which was given it by
one line of Ovid’s.
_Desunt luxuriæ malta_, _avaritiæ omnia_.