The vices are like brothers: all can live quite comfortably together. If indeed you let but one inside your heart, the rest will soon file in and take possession.
But the virtues aren’t like sisters: rarely do they dwell within the same abode. One man is valiant, but he’s temperamental too; another’s prudent, but he’s cold. Among the animals, the dog quite rightly prides himself on being faithful and attentive; he’s also, though, a glutton and a dunce.
For instance, take two mastiffs, who discerned one day a donkey’s corpse that floated in the water, far from shore.
“Old friend,” said one of them, “your eyes are better than are mine. What dead thing’s that out there? an ox? a horse?”
“What does it matter?” cried the other. “Prey is prey, and that is prey. The question’s how to catch it. That’s a longish way to swim, against the wind, no less.”
“I know! Let’s drink this water up, and dry-shod reach our goal—a week’s good grub, at least!”
Those foolish dogs imbibed and quaffed and guzzled till they died.
People are much the same: when some desire overmasters us, we lose our sense of what’s impossible. To gain some distant good or win some glory only dimly seen, we’ll tax and strain ourselves until we break. “I want more land,” thinks this one; “I’ll get rich,” thinks that; another thinks he’ll Hebrew learn . . . or history . . . or science. Might as well attempt to drink the sea!
Unplumbable as seas are human hopes. The livelong lives of four Methuselahs would not, it seems to me, suffice to realize one man’s dreams.