Some are these, I say also, who are loth to die for lack of wit.
Albeit that they believe in the world that is to come and hope also
to come thither, yet they love so much the wealth of this world and
such things as delight them therein, that they would fain keep them
as long as ever they can, even with tooth and nail. And when they
can be suffered in no wise to keep it longer, but death taketh them
from it, then, if it can be no better, they will agree to be, as
soon as they be hence, hauled up into heaven and be with God
forthwith! These folk as as very idiot fools as he who had kept
from his childhood a bag full of cherry stones, and cast such a
fancy to it that he would not go from it for a bigger bag filled
with gold.
These folk fare, cousin, as AEsop telleth in a fable that the snail
did. For when Jupiter (whom the poets feign for the great god)
invited all the poor worms of the earth unto a great solemn feast
that it pleased him upon a time--I have forgotten upon what
occasion--to prepare for them, the snail kept her at home and would
not come. And when Jupiter asked her afterward wherefore she came
not to his feast, where he said she would have been welcome and
have fared well, and would have seen a goodly palace and been
delighted with many goodly pleasures, she answered him that she
loved no place so well as her own house.
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