Every excess, as Epictetus argues, produces disgust: sweetness turns sour. That is why the temperate Epicurus sometimes fasted voluntarily. But the rich, always accustomed to the same dishes—filthily prepared by slovenly cooks who never wash their foul hands after their dirty acts—grow sick of them, whether fish, meat, elaborate mixed dishes, or anything else. Nectar itself becomes loathsome to them; they tire of all their splendid palaces, which become so many prisons.

A poor man drinks from a wooden bowl and eats his food with wooden spoons, from wooden platters, earthenware vessels, and other humble utensils. The rich man uses gold, silver, and precious stones. But with what result? “Poison is drunk from gold”: fear of poison in the one case, safety in the other.

A poor man can write, speak his mind, and conduct his business himself. “The rich man sends a parasite,” says Philostratus: he employs a hanger-on and, like a city’s mayor, speaks through the town clerk or the Recorder when he cannot express himself.

Nonius the senator has a purple coat as stiff with jewels as his mind is full of vices, rings on his fingers worth twenty thousand sesterces, and, like Perox the Persian king, a pearl in his ear worth a hundred pounds’ weight of gold.

Cleopatra has whole boars and sheep brought to her table at once and drinks dissolved jewels worth forty thousand sesterces. But to what purpose?

When thirst burns your throat, do you ask For golden cups?

Does a thirsty man long to drink from gold? Does a woollen suit not become him as well and keep him as warm as all their silks, satins, damasks, taffetas, and cloth of gold or silver? Is homespun cloth not as good a protection against the cold as a coat of Tartar lamb’s wool dyed deep scarlet, or a gown made from giants’ beards?

Nero, says Suetonius, never wore a garment twice, while you scarcely have one to put on. What is the difference? One is sick, the other healthy. Such is the whole course of their lives; and death itself, the conclusion and outcome of it all, makes the greatest difference.

One, like a hen, feeds on the dunghill all his days, but is finally served at his lord’s table. The other, like a falcon, is fed partridges and pigeons and carried on his master’s fist, but when he dies he is thrown on the muckheap and left there.

The rich man lives merrily here on earth like Dives, “drunk with riches”—make the most of it—and “boasts of the abundance of his wealth,” Psalm 49:6, 11. He thinks his house, called by his own name, will last for ever; but “he perishes like a beast,” verse 20; “his way reveals his folly,” verse 13. “Ill-gotten goods come to an ill end”; “like sheep they lie in the grave,” verse 14. “In a moment they descend to hell”: “They spend their days in wealth and suddenly go down to hell,” Job 21:13.

Despite physicians and medicines straining to sustain nature, a swooning wife, his family’s lamentations, his friends’ tears, dirges, masses, funeral songs, and obsequies; despite speeches, insincere hired applause, eulogies, epitaphs, funeral biers, heralds, mourners in black, ceremonies, obelisks, and monumental tombs—if he even has them—he goes to hell like a hog, with a guilty conscience and a poor man’s curse: “Because of these men, hell has enlarged its mouth.”

His memory stinks like a candle’s burnt wick when it is put out; scurrilous lampoons and disgraceful accusations follow him. Poor Lazarus, meanwhile, is “God’s sanctuary,” the temple of God. He lives and dies in true devotion, attended only by his innocence, with the sky for his tomb. He longs to depart this life and be buried in his mother’s lap, and a company of angels stands ready to carry his soul into Abraham’s bosom. He leaves an enduring and sweet memory behind.

Crassus and Sulla are indeed still remembered, but more for their victories than their wealth; Croesus for his end, Solomon for his wisdom. In a word, acquiring wealth is a great trouble, keeping it an anxiety, and losing it a grief.

What fitting curse shall I call down on foolish minds? Let them pursue wealth and honours; And when, at immense cost, they have obtained false goods, Then let them learn what the true goods are.

But consider all the other unrecognised, hidden blessings a poor man possesses. I call them unrecognised because the world does not acknowledge or regard them as blessings. “Oh, how fortunate they are, if only they knew their own good fortune!” Happy they are already, if only they would recognise it, make use of it, or apply it to themselves. “A wise poor man is better than a foolish king,” Ecclesiastes 2:13.

Poverty is the road to heaven, the teacher of philosophy, the mother of religion, virtue, and sobriety, the sister of innocence and an upright mind. How many such praises could I add from the Church Fathers, philosophers, and orators?

Many poor people are troubled by their poverty. They regard it as a great affliction, a curse, a sign of God’s hatred, “wickedness itself,” damned villainy itself, a disgrace, a shame, and a reproach. But a reproach to whom, or why? If fortune has begrudged me wealth, thieves have robbed me, or my father has not left me the income others inherit; if I am a younger brother, of humble birth—

Whose lineage has no lustre, whose parents’ name is unheard—

Of humble parentage, the son of a mud-plasterer, am I therefore to blame? An eagle, bull, or lion is not rejected for its poverty: why should a man be? It is “fortune’s blow, not a fault”: fortune’s fault, not mine.