I have heard one of these luxurious folk⁠—if indeed, we ought to give the name of luxury to unlearning the life and habits of a man⁠—when he was carried in men’s arms out of the bath and placed in his chair, say inquiringly, “Am I seated?” Do you suppose that such a man as this, who did not know when he was seated, could know whether he was alive, whether he could see, whether he was at leisure? I can hardly say whether I pity him more if he really did not know or if he pretended not to know this. Such people do really become unconscious of much, but they behave as though they were unconscious of much more: they delight in some failings because they consider them to be proofs of happiness: it seems the part of an utterly low and contemptible man to know what he is doing. After this, do you suppose that playwrights draw largely upon their imaginations in their burlesques upon luxury: by Hercules, they omit more than they invent; in this age, inventive in this alone, such a number of incredible vices have been produced, that already you are able to reproach the playwrights with omitting to notice them. To think that there should be anyone who had so far lost his senses through luxury as to take someone else’s opinion as to whether he was sitting or not?