Honour often seems a highly artificial convention, but life in any level of society where it has been abandoned astonishes by its tortuousness.
“Gold, silver, jewels, purple garments, houses built of marble, groomed estates, pious paintings, caparisoned steeds, and other things of this kind offer a mutable and superficial pleasure; books give delight to the very marrow of one’s bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.”
Petrarch