We must here make a notable distinction of desires, insomuch, some are naturall, given by God to man for the preservation of himself: Others are artificiall, which arising out of an exorbitant will, are nothing but floud and ebb, but agitations and tempests. Desires are like number, one cannot name any so great, but that it is capable of addition.
Hence it proceedeth, that the world is replenished with desiring, and suffering souls, and that there is not almost any one who is not in expectation, and breathes not the air of the Region of desires. The most part of men resemble the moth which gnaws a garment, and in gnawing eateth its own house: For by the eagernesse of desiring the future, they lose all the pleasure of the present, and demolish their fortune by their greedinesse to raise it. That is it which the Panegyrick wittily ex∣pressed, pronounced before Constantine the sonne. Fe∣licity glideth by us, as the water which streameth along under bridges, when still, full of hope, we rest unfurnish∣ed of contentments.
Desiring hearts (saith S, Augustine) are as those great-bellied women to whom the eternall word hath denounced a Curse in the Gospel. All the world would be but a morsell in the mouth of mans heart (saith Ri∣chardus de sancto Victore) since its wishes are infinite and that it is evident that in Infinity what part soever you assigne, you are still at the beginning.
If you desire that I make you a picture of the nature and perquisits of Desire, I will tell you it is a strange countrey whereunto the prodigall Child sailed, when he forsook his fathers house to undertake a banishment: a Country where corn is still in grasse, vines in the bud, trees perpetually in blossome, and birds alwayes in the shell. You neither see corn, fruit, nor any thing fully shaped; all is there onely in expectation. It is a Countrey full of figures, phantasmes, illusions, and hopes which are dreames without sleep: a Countrey where the inhabitants are never without feavers, one is no sooner gone, but another cometh into its place. There, dwelleth Covetousnesse a great woman, mea∣gre, lean, starven, having round about her a huge swarm of winged boyes, of which some are altogether lan∣guishing, others cast her a thousand smiles as she pas∣seth along; upon her self she hath an infinite number of horsleeches, which suck upon her to the marrow. Time looketh on her afarre off, and never cometh near her, shewing her an enchanted looking-glasse, wherein she seeth a thousand, and a thousand false colours, which amuse her; and when she hath sported enough, she hath nothing to dinner, but smoke.
Behold the table of Covetousnesse grounded upon Theology and the Philosophy of S. Thomas. I say, to explicate my self, that the countrey thereof is the countrey of the prodigall child, and that famine is per∣petually there, Desire being nothing else but a hunger of the good it wisheth: or indeed, a motion of the appetite towards the thing it loveth, and the first degree of love. All is in blossome in this countrey, and never in fruit, insomuch, as he who desiret, hpossesseih nothing, as yet, but in imagination: and such is the nature of Desire, that coming to the end of its carrer, it sinks; sinee where the good is present that is affected, there is no further desire. the Inhabitants there, are continually in fea∣vers, since wishes are but feaverish fervours. All there, is full of phantasmes, because all those blessings are merely imaginary. Covetousness is necessarily hungry, being perpetually in pursuit, never overtaking nor eat∣ing: but if it do overtake and eat, and gluts its heart, it ceaseth to be Covetousness. Verily it hath round about it litle laughing boyes; those are gaudy, and sparkling desires: some sad, they are frustrated desires: Many bloud-suckers, which suck it, they are troublesome, and turbulent Desires. I adde, that time (ever distant from it (entertaineth it with an enchanted mirrour: For it seeth nothing but in the future, and sees many Chy∣meras and illusions, after which it is tormented, As Ty∣gers who beholding the looking-glasse which hunters have set in Forrests, imagine it to be a creature of their own kind shut up in a prison of glasse, and so long they scratch it, till they break it and deface their desire. Last∣ly, I conclude, that they are served at dinner with smoke, all worldly desires being nought else but wind, and smoke.