"When you kindly offer to present me to a gentleman of whom you can
say only that he is very rich, and I ask you if he will give me some
of his money, you look surprised and shocked. But I am not a
misanthrope, and I ask a question which you can answer affirmatively.
He will give me some of his money in giving me some of the pleasure
which is derivable from what his money buys. For that I am grateful. I
tip the custode with my sincere thanks. I bow to the door-keeper with
hearty acknowledgment. I shall go again and again with great pleasure.
But I shall not make the singular mistake of supposing that he bears
the same relation to his possessions that the musician bears to his
music, and the scholar to his knowledge, and the traveller to his
shrewd observation.

"You think that I am basely looking a gift horse in the mouth. Not at
all. I am only declining to believe the porter to be a peer of the
realm merely because he wears a white cravat and has tranquil manners.
If Midas is a dull man, all the money in the world does not make him
interesting. But if he has accumulated beautiful and interesting
things, I shall gladly go to his house and see them. Now, my dear Mrs.
Grundy, that is very different from going to his house to see the
Plutuses. They are not the possessions that make his house desirable.
My young friend Hornet says that if the only way to drink Midas's
gold-seal Johannisberger is to take Mrs. Plutus down to dinner, he
will not hesitate to pay the price, as he is willing to pay the price
of sea-sickness if he wishes to see the Vatican. Does my dear Mrs.
Grundy comprehend?"

--But the good lady was gone. She could draw but one conclusion from
such a strain of remark about people with fabulous incomes. The