It is sure, we seldom find it, but in such as being
conscious of their own deficiency, think there is no way to get honour
but by a bold assuming it. If you search for high and strained
carriages, you shall for the most part meet with them in low men.
Arrogance is a weed that ever grows in a dunghill. It is from the
rankness of that soil that she hath her height and spreadings. Witness
clowns, fools, and fellows that from nothing are lifted some few steps
upon fortune's ladder; where, seeing the glorious representment of
honour above, they are so greedy of embracing, that they strive to
leap thither at once: so by overreaching themselves in the way, they
fail of the end, and fall. And all this happiness, either for want of
education, which should season their minds with the generous precepts
of morality; or, which is more powerful, example; or else for lack of
a discerning judgment, which will tell them that the best way thither,
is to go about by humility and desert. Otherwise the river of contempt
runs betwixt them and it: and if they go not by these passages, they
must of necessity either turn back with shame, or suffer in the
desperate venture. Of trees, I observe, God hath chosen the vine, a
low plant that creeps upon the helpful wall. Of all beasts, the soft
and patient lamb. Of all fowls, the mild and gall-less dove. Christ is
the rose of the field, and the lily of the valley.
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