The Visions of Dom Francisco De Quevedo Villegas by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas

IT is utterly impossible for anything in this world to fix our appetites and desires; but they are still flitting, and restless like pilgrims; delighted and nourished with variety: which shows how much we are mistaken in the value and quality of the things we covet. And hence it is, that what we pursue with the greatest delight and passion imaginable, yields us nothing but satiety and repentance in the possession; yet such is the power of these appetites of ours that when they call and command, we follow and obey; though we find in the end that what we took for a beauty, upon the chase proves but a carcass in the quarry; and we are sick on't as soon as we have it. Now the world, that knows our palate and inclination, never fails to feed the humour, and to flatter and entertain us with all sorts of change and novelty, as the most certain method of gaining upon our affections.

One would have thought that these considerations might have put sober thoughts and resolutions in my head, but it was my fate to be taken off, in the very middle of my morality and speculations, and carried away from myself by vanity and weakness into the wide world, where I was for a certain time, not much unsatisfied with my condition. As I passed from one place to another, several that saw me (I perceived) did but make sport with me: for the further I went, the more I was at a loss in that labyrinth of delusions. One while I was in with the sword-men and bravoes; up to the ears in challenges, and quarrels; and never without an arm in a scarf, or a broken head. Another fit; I was never well, but at the Fleece Tavern, or Bear at bridge-foot, stuffing my guts with food and tipple, till the hoops were ready to burst. Beside twenty other entertainments that I found, every jot as extravagant as these, which to my great trouble and admiration left me not so much as one moment of repose.