49. It is like the flame of a lamp which is bright but blackening and acutely burning at its end. It is fed by the oily wicks (of years), is vivid in all, but never handled by any body.
50. Penury has the power of bemeaning the best of men to (the baseness of) straws in a moment, notwithstanding their wisdom, heroism and gravity in other respects.
51. Avarice is like the great valley of the Vindhyá hills, that is beset with deserts and impenetrable forests, is terrible and full of snares laid by the hunters, and filled with the dust and mist (of delusion).
52. One single avarice has every thing in the world for its object, and though seated in the breast, it is imperceptible to all. It is as the undulating Milky ocean in this fluctuating world, sweeping all things yet regaling mankind with its odorous waves.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Obloquy of the Body.
This body of ours that struts about on earth, is but a mass of humid entrails and tendons, tending to decay and disease, and to our torment alone.
2. It is neither quiescent nor wholly sentient, neither ignorant nor quite intelligent. Its inherent soul is a wonder, and it is reason (and its absence) that makes it graceful or otherwise.
3. The sceptic is doubtful of its inertness and intellection: and the unreasonable and ignorant people are ever subject to error and illusion.
4. The body is as easily gratified with a little, as it is exhausted in an instant, hence there is nothing so pitiable, abject and worthless as our bodies.
5. The face is as frail as a fading flower: now it shoots forth its teeth like filaments, and now it dresses itself with blooming and blushing smiles as blossoms.