"'What life could be as glorious as mine?' he continued, and his eyes
lighted up. 'You are young, your mental visions are colored by
youthful blood, you see women's faces in the fire, while I see nothing
but coals in mine. You have all sorts of beliefs, while I have no
beliefs at all. Keep your illusions--if you can. Now I will show you
life with the discount taken off. Go wherever you like, or stay at
home by the fireside with your wife, there always comes a time when
you settle down in a certain groove, the groove is your preference;
and then happiness consists in the exercise of your faculties by
applying them to realities. Anything more in the way of precept is
false. My principles have been various, among various men; I had to
change them with every change of latitude. Things that we admire in
Europe are punishable in Asia, and a vice in Paris becomes a necessity
when you have passed the Azores. There are no such things as
hard-and-fast rules; there are only conventions adapted to the climate.
Fling a man headlong into one social melting pot after another, and
convictions and forms and moral systems become so many meaningless
words to him. The one thing that always remains, the one sure instinct
that nature has implanted in us, is the instinct of self-interest. If
you had lived as long as I have, you would know that there is but one
concrete reality invariable enough to be worth caring about, and that
is--GOLD. Gold represents every form of human power. I have traveled.
I found out that there were either hills or plains everywhere: the
plains are monotonous, the hills a weariness; consequently, place may
be left out of the question. As to manners; man is man all the world
over. The same battle between the poor and the rich is going on
everywhere; it is inevitable everywhere; consequently, it is better to
exploit than to be exploited. Everywhere you find the man of thews and
sinews who toils, and the lymphatic man who torments himself; and
pleasures are everywhere the same, for when all sensations are