those from whose penuriousness your early years have suffered; you know
that their character is not thus bare of virtues. But do not for this
contradict my assertion; theirs was not always innate love of money for
its own sake, though at length they may have unfortunately learned to
love it thus, which is the true test of avarice. It has, on the
contrary, been owing to the faults of others, to their having long
experienced the deprivations attendant on a want of money, that they
have acquired the habit of thinking the consciousness of its possession
quite as enjoyable as the powers and the pleasures its expenditure
bestows. They know too well the pain of want of money, but have never
learned that the real pleasure of its possession consists in its
employment.[66] It is only from habit, only from perverted experience,
that they are avaricious, therefore I at once exonerate them from the
charges I have brought against those whose very nature it is to love
money for its own sake. At the same time the strong expressions I have
made use of respecting these latter, may, I hope, serve to obviate the
suspicion that I have any indulgence for so despicable a vice, and may
induce you to expect an unprejudiced statement of the merits and the
duty of economy.

It is carefully to be remembered that the excess of every natural virtue
becomes a vice, and that these apparently opposing qualities are only
divided from each other by almost insensible boundaries. The habitual
exercise of strong self-control can alone preserve even our virtues from
degenerating into sin, and a clear-sightedness as to the very first
step of declension must be sought for by self-denial on our own part,
and by earnest prayer for the assisting graces of the Holy Spirit, to
search the depths of our heart, and open our eyes to see.

Thus it is that the free and generous impulses of a warm and benevolent