indifference; and we are covered from head to foot with the
callosities of habitual opulence. Born into what is called a
certain rank, we live, as the saying is, up to our station. We
squander without enjoyment, because our fathers squandered. We eat
of the best, not from delicacy, but from brazen habit. We do not
keenly enjoy or eagerly desire the presence of a luxury; we are
unaccustomed to its absence. And not only do we squander money
from habit, but still more pitifully waste it in ostentation. I
can think of no more melancholy disgrace for a creature who
professes either reason or pleasure for his guide, than to spend
the smallest fraction of his income upon that which he does not
desire; and to keep a carriage in which you do not wish to drive,
or a butler of whom you are afraid, is a pathetic kind of folly.
Money, being a means of happiness, should make both parties happy
when it changes hands; rightly disposed, it should be twice blessed
in its employment; and buyer and seller should alike have their
twenty shillings worth of profit out of every pound. Benjamin
Franklin went through life an altered man, because he once paid too
dearly for a penny whistle. My concern springs usually from a
deeper source, to wit, from having bought a whistle when I did not
want one. I find I regret this, or would regret it if I gave
myself the time, not only on personal but on moral and
philanthropical considerations. For, first, in a world where money
is wanting to buy books for eager students and food and medicine
for pining children, and where a large majority are starved in
their most immediate desires, it is surely base, stupid, and cruel
to squander money when I am pushed by no appetite and enjoy no
return of genuine satisfaction. My philanthropy is wide enough in
scope to include myself; and when I have made myself happy, I have
at least one good argument that I have acted rightly; but where