his purse, and a man's desire to spend has no such limits.

The conclusion to be drawn from this is that you have got to curb your
desires unless you are unusual in one of two respects, either in your
money-getting ability or in your lack of imagination for inventing new
desires. In any case _you_ can eliminate these possibilities. Now,
admitting that at some point you have got to curb your desires, why not do
it at a point near Harris's, which will leave you in a more comfortable
frame of mind in regard to your money matters, rather than Perry's, who
does not have all he wants, and is discontented, or Vanderbilt, who would
consider himself ruined if he had to live on ten thousand a year?

I know that you may think that you cannot come to Harris's point of view,
as your points of view have always been horizontally opposite, he looking
up to a sum upon which you look down. But never mind. I am suggesting that
we do reach that point, nevertheless, or, if not that point, that we shall
use our intellects, and, with a view to expediency, select a point it
would be wise to reach.

I assert that we have now an intellectual problem before us. The question
is what scale of expenditure we shall use and what proportion of our
desires, etc., shall we curb.

The usual hand-to-mouth method is to go ahead, do what we want until we
are "up against it" and have to economize, and then for a while do without
some of the more important things which we find we cannot afford, having
already spent our money on things of lesser importance. This is the lazy
man's way, the one who does not care to do his thinking, and chooses to
let circumstances make his course rather than wisdom.