previous next  In the judgment of Ofellus, a sordid way of
living will differ widely from frugal simplicity. For it is to
no purpose for you to shun that vice [of luxury]; if you
perversely fly to the contrary extreme. Avidienus, to whom the
nickname of Dog is applied with propriety, eats olives of five
years old, and wild cornels, and can not bear to rack off his
wine unless it be turned sour, and the smell of his oil you can
not endure: which (though clothed in white he celebrates the
wedding festival,1 his birth-day, or any other festal days) he
pours out himself by little and little from a horn cruet, that
holds two pounds, upon his cabbage, [but at the same time] is
lavish enough of his old vinegar.  What manner of living
therefore shall the wise man put in practice, and which of these
examples shall he copy? On one side the wolf presses on, and the
dog on the other, as the saying is. A person will be accounted
decent, if he offends not by sordidness, and is not despicable
through either extreme of condu