He always overstocks his ground and starves instead of
feeding, destroys whatsoever he has an extraordinary care for, and, like
an ape, hugs the whelp he loves most to death. All his designs are
greater than the life, and he laughs to think how Nature has mistaken
her match, and given him so much odds that he can easily outrun her. He
allows of no merit but that which is superabundant. All his actions are
superfoetations, that either become monsters or twins; that is, too
much, or the same again; for he is but a supernumerary and does nothing
but for want of a better. He is a civil Catholic, that holds nothing
more steadfastly than supererogation in all that he undertakes, for he
undertakes nothing but what he overdoes. He is insatiable in all his
actions and, like a covetous person, never knows when he has done
enough until he has spoiled all by doing too much. He is his own
antagonist, and is never satisfied until he has outdone himself as well
as that which he proposed, for he loves to be better than his word
(though it always falls out worse) and deceive the world the wrong way.
He believes the mean to be but a mean thing, and therefore always runs
into extremities as the more excellent, great, and transcendent. He
delights to exceed in all his attempts, for he finds that a goose that
has three legs is more remarkable than a hundred that have but two
apiece, and has a greater number of followers; and that all monsters are
more visited and applied to than other creatures that Nature has made
perfect in their kind.
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