ERASMUS. No.
DESIDERIUS. No, nor nobody ever did, or ever will, till we can see an alchemist grow rich.
ERASMUS. Why, is there no such art then? I wish with all my heart there was.
DESIDERIUS. Perhaps you do, because you would not be at the pains which are required to become learned.
ERASMUS. You are right.
DESIDERIUS. It seemed meet to the Divine Being that the common riches, gold, jewels, silver, palaces, and kingdoms should be bestowed on the slothful and undeserving; but the true riches, and such as are properly our own, must be gotten by labour.
Erasmus. Colloquies: The Notable Art.
READERS AND WRITERS
Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason;—they made no such demand on those who wrote them. Those works therefore are the most valuable, that set our thinking faculties in the fullest operation.—C. C. Colton. Lacon.