-V.S. Naipaul: A House for Mr Biswas
Saturday, December 20, 2008
pleasure in possession and anticipation rather than fulfilment
Presents were compared, and when it was established that there was no cause for jealousy, the children ate their apples, blew up balloons, and raised feeble chirruping with tin whistles. Many whistles were soon silenced by spittle or some fundamental mechanical defect, and most of the boys burst their balloons before going downstairs to kiss Mrs Tulsi. Those boys who were to grow up into detestable men gave a single toot on their whistles, nibbled at their apples and blew up their balloons hardly at all, in this resembling the girls, who already showed their pleasure in possession and anticipation rather than fulfilment.
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"For the well-being of the individual two things are necessary: the first and most essential is to act virtuously (it is through virtue, in fact, that we live a good life); the other, and secondary, requirement is rather a means, and lies in a sufficiency of material goods, such as are necessary to virtuous action."
St. Thomas Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, chap. XV
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