Excerpted from Christopher Morley’s A Book of Days: Being a Briefcase packed for his own Pleasure
NOVEMBER 3 TUESDAY
How ruinous a farm hath man taken, in taking himself! How ready is the house every day to fall down, and how is all the ground overspread with weeds, all the body with diseases; where not only every muscle of the flesh, but every bone of the body hath some infirmity; every tooth in our head such a pain as a constant man is afraid of, and yet ashamed of that fear. How dear and how often a rent doth man pay for his farm! He pays twice a day, in double meals, and how little time he hath to raise his rent! Every day is half holiday, half spent in sleep.
— JOHN DONNE, Devotions (1624)
