The Anatomy of Melancholy

Gold above all is a delightful object, a sweet sight, with a splendid lustre. “We look at gold more gladly than at the sun,” says Augustine; and we would rather see it than the sun. It is sweet and pleasant to acquire and to keep. It gives savour to all our labours: the unbearable pains we take for it, degrading work, bitter jeers and taunts endured, long journeys and heavy burdens—all are made light and easy by this hope of gain. “But at home I applaud myself as soon as I gaze upon the coins in my chest.”

The sight of gold refreshes our spirits and ravishes our hearts, as the Babylonian garment and wedge of gold did Achan in the camp: merely seeing or hearing of it sets his soul ablaze with desire. It will make a man travel to the other side of the world, or stay at home and become a parasite, lie, flatter, sell himself, swear oaths and bear false witness. He will risk his body, kill a king, murder his father and damn his soul to obtain it. “A mass of gold is more beautiful,” as the writer aptly observed, than all your Greek pictures that Apelles, Phidias or any foolish painter could ever make. We are in love with it:

The foremost prayer, familiar in every temple: That riches may increase.

All our labours, studies, efforts, vows, prayers and wishes aim at getting it, at finding how to obtain it.

This is she whom the vast world serves: Money, mighty goddess of all things, mistress of fate.

This is the great goddess we adore and worship, the sole object of our desire. If we possess it, we think ourselves made for ever, thrice happy, princes, lords and so on. If we lose it, we are dull, weighed down, dejected, dissatisfied, miserable, desperate and mad. Our condition and well-being ebb and flow with our material advantage; and we are loved and valued according to our possessions and wealth. That regard lasts no longer than our riches: when they are gone and the object is removed, farewell friendship.

As long as generosity, good dinners and rewards could be expected, there were friends enough. They were tied to you by their teeth and would follow you as crows follow a carcass. But when your possessions are gone and spent, the lamp of their love goes out, and you will be despised, scorned, hated and wronged.

When Lucian’s Timon lived in prosperity, he was the great spectacle of Greece, the one everyone admired: who could compare with Timon? Everyone loved, honoured and applauded him; each offered his services and sought to claim kinship. But when his gold was spent and his fine possessions gone, farewell Timon! No one was so ugly, so misshapen, so hateful an outcast as Timon; suddenly no one was so ridiculous. They gave him a penny to buy a rope; no one would acknowledge him.

This is the world’s general disposition: advantage steers our affections from beginning to end. We love the fortunate and rich, those who prosper, or those from whom we may receive kindness in return, expect similar courtesies, or obtain some benefit, gain or profit. On the other hand, we hate and abhor the poor and miserable, or those through whom we may suffer loss or harm.