you are not rich.

Is knowledge the pearl of price in your estimation? That, toy may be
purchased by steady application, and long solitary study and reflection.
Bestow these, and you shall be learned. "But," says the man of letters,
"what a hardship is it, that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe
the motto of the arms on his coach, shall raise a fortune and make a
figure, while I have little more than the common conveniences of life!" Was
it, then, to raise a fortune, that you consumed the sprightly hours of
youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that you grew pale over
the midnight lamp, and distilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman
springs? You have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry.
"What reward have I then, for all my labor?" What reward! A large,
comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and
prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man,--of God; a
rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, furnished with inexhaustible stores of
entertainment and reflection; a perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the
conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Heaven! What other reward
can you ask besides!

"But is it not some reproach upon the economy of Providence, that such a
one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy
half a nation?" Not in the least. He made himself a mean, dirty fellow for
that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, his liberty for it;
and will you envy him his bargain? Will you hang your head and blush in his
presence, because he outshines you in equipage and show? Lift up your brow
with a noble confidence, and say to yourself "I have not these things, it
is true; but it is because I have not sought, because I have not desired
them; it is because I possess something better. I have chosen my lot; I am
content and satisfied." The characteristic mark of a great and noble mind