"Rejoiced they were not men, but dogs."

An Italian wit has defined man to be "an animal which troubles himself
with things which don't concern him"; and, when one thinks of the
indefatigable way in which people pursue pleasure, all the while deriving
no pleasure from it, one is filled with amazement. "Life would be very
tolerable if it were not for its pleasures," said Sir Cornewall Lewis,
and I am satisfied that half the weariness of life comes from the vain
attempts which are made to satisfy a jaded appetite.

There are many things which are not luxuries _per se_, but become so if
indulged in to excess. Take, for instance, smoking and drinking. One
pipe a day and one glass of wine a day are not luxuries, but a great many
a day are luxuries. So lying in bed five minutes after you wake is not a
luxury, but so lying for an hour is. The man who is fond precociously of
stirring may be a spoon, but the man who lies in bed half the day is
something worse. Then it must be remembered that a single indulgence in
one luxury produces scarcely any effect on the mind or body, but a habit
of indulging in that luxury has a great effect.

"The sins which practice burns into the blood,
And not the one dark hour which brings remorse
Will brand us after of whose fold we be."

I am surely right in noticing that the rich man is said to have fared
sumptuously _every_ day, as though faring sumptuously might have no
significance, but the constantly faring sumptuously was what had degraded
and debased the man below the level of the beggar at his gate. I feel
that to be luxurious occasionally is no bad thing, if we can keep our
self-control, and return constantly to simple habits. There is something