“devotes himself forever to the pursuit of wealth and greatness....With the most unrelenting industry he labors night and day....serves those whom he hates, and is obsequious to those whom he despises....[I]n the last dregs of life, his body wasted with toil and diseases, his mind galled and ruffled by the memory of a thousand injuries and disappointments....he begins at last to find that wealth and greatness are mere trinkets of frivolous utility....Power and riches....keep off the summer shower, not the winter storm, but leave him always as much, and sometimes more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow; to diseases, to danger, and to death...”
E]n los últimos instantes de vida, con su cuerpo desgastado por el esfuerzo y las enfermedades, su mente amargada y alterada por la memoria de mil injurias y desilusiones [...] finalmente comienza a descubrir que la riqueza y la grandeza son meras baratijas de nimia utilidad [...] El poder y riquezas [...] alejan el chubasco de verano, no la tormenta de invierno, y lo dejan tan expuesto como antes, y a veces más aún, a la ansiedad, el miedo y el dolor; a las enfermedades, el peligro y la muerte...».