Let Dives be accounted then a public benefactor, we may say; perhaps
so, but the question still remains, does Dives get the most and best
out of life? The obvious answer is that the best things of life are
not to be bought with money; it would be nearer the truth to quote the
prophetic paradox, they are bought 'without money and without price.'
I was present once at a dinner given by a millionaire newspaper
proprietor to a crowd of journalists, on the occasion of the founding
of a new magazine. The millionaire ate little, spoke little, and sat
throughout the feast with an anxious cloud upon his brow. I recognised
the same furtive look of apprehension in his eyes that I had seen in
the eyes of my stock-broking friend long before. As I glanced round
the room I found myself able to pick out all the men of wealth by that
same look. It would seem that the anxieties of getting money only
beget the more torturing anxiety of how to keep it. That, I am
persuaded, was the dominant thought of my millionaire host throughout
the meal; he knew the fear and fever of the gambler risking an enormous
stake, the agitation of the soldier on the eve of a battle, in which
victory is highly problematical. But that crowd of hungry journalists,
how they did eat! What laughter sat on those boyish faces, what zest
of life, what capacity of pleasure! There was not one of them whose
daily bread was not precarious; not one perhaps who had a decent
balance at the bank; yet they were so gay, so resolutely cheerful, so
frankly interested in life and in themselves, that I could fancy those
gloomy eyes at the head of the table watched them with a sort of envy,
I think there must be something fatal to gaiety in the mere
responsibilities of wealth; I am sure that there is something
corrupting in the labours of its acquisition. I think I had rather be
a vagrant, with a crust in my knapsack, a blue sky above me, and the
adventurous road before me, than look upon the world with a pair of
eyes so laughterless as his who was our host that night.