Intellectual pleasures delight me, when they are quick, certain, and
easily obtained. I leave those which I am told arise from patient
study, length of time, and severe application, to the fools who think
time given to be so wasted. Roses grow for me to gather: rivers roll
for me to lave in. Let the slave dig the mine, but for me let the
diamond sparkle. Let the lamb, the dove, and the life-loving eel writhe
and die; it shall not disturb me, while I enjoy the viands. The five
senses are my deities; to them I pay worship and adoration, and never
yet have I been slack in the performance of my duty.

What! Shall we exist but for a few years, and of those shall there be
but a few hours as it were of youth, joy, and pleasure, and shall we
let them slip? Shall we cast away a good that never can return; and
seek for pain, which is itself in so much haste to seek for us? Away
with such folly! The opposite system be mine.

The voluptuous Italian, as wise in this as in other arts, knows better.
He lives for the moment, and takes care not to let the moment slip. His
very beggars, basking in the sun, will not remove, so long as hunger
will suffer them to enjoy the happiness of being idle. Who so perfectly
understand the luxury of indolence as the Lazaroni of Naples?

The Italian, indeed, seems to exert all the craft for which he is so
famous, to accomplish this sole purpose of enjoyment. He marries a
wife, and the handsomest he can procure; that, when the ardour of
desire is satiated, she may fleece some gallant, who shall pay for his
pleasures elsewhere. And, as variety is the object of all, gallant
succeeds to gallant, while he himself flies from mistress to mistress,
and thus an equal barter is maintained.