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that he took no more account of the wind that came out their mouth
in words, than of that they expelled from their lower parts: men who
desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that
of wisdom, which is the food and the only true riches of the mind.
For so much more worthy as the soul is than the body, so much more
noble are the possessions of the soul than those of the body. And
often, when I see one of these men take this work in his hand, I
wonder that he does not put it to his nose, like a monkey, or ask me
if it is something good to eat.
[Footnote: In the original, the Proemio dì prospettiva cioè
dell'uffitio dell'occhio (see No. 21) stands between this and the
preceding one, No. 9.]
INTRODUCTION.
I am fully concious that, not being a literary man, certain
presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonably blame me;
alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks! do they not
know that I might retort as Marius did to the Roman Patricians
[Footnote 21: Come Mario disse ai patriti Romani. "I am unable to
find the words here attributed by Leonardo to Marius, either in
Plutarch's Life of Marius or in the Apophthegmata (Moralia,
p.202). Nor do they occur in the writings of Valerius Maximus (who
frequently mentions Marius) nor in Velleius Paterculus (II, 11 to
4
3), Dio Cassius, Aulus Gellius, or Macrobius. Professor E.
2
8
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