Note 186 — San Agustin’s Letter on the Filipinos
Reading edition
80. They also have other qualities worthy of envy, non quoad causam sed quoad efectum.186 Such is their contentment with their lot, for they believe that there is no people in the whole world better than they, and that if they possess a bamboo hut, a little rice for a few days, a few small fish, and a couple of leaves of tobacco, they do not envy the tables of Xerxes or Eliogabalus,187 and can sing with Lucan: