Part 22 (1/2)
At length, an acc.u.mulation of money comes into the children's hands.
They have before been restricted in their expenditure; now they become lavish. They have been educated in no better tastes. They spend extravagantly. They will not be drudges in business as their father was.
They will be ”gentlemen,” and spend their money ”like gentlemen.” And very soon the money takes wings and flies away. Many are the instances in which families have been raised to wealth in the first generation, launched into ruinous expense in the second, and disappeared in the third,--being again reduced to poverty. Hence the Lancas.h.i.+re proverb, ”Twice clogs, once boots.” The first man wore clogs, and acc.u.mulated a ”a power o' money;” his rich son spent it; and the third generation took up the clogs again. A candidate for parliamentary honours, when speaking from the hustings, was asked if he had plenty bra.s.s. ”Plenty bra.s.s?”
said he; ”ay, I've lots o' bra.s.s!--I stink o' bra.s.s!”
The same social transformations are known in Scotland. The proverb there is, ”The grandsire digs, the father bigs, the son thigs,”[1]--that is, the grandfather worked hard and made a fortune, the father built a fine house, and the son, ”an unthrifty son of Linne,” when land and goods were gone and spent, took to thieving. Merchants are sometimes princes to-day and beggars to-morrow; and so long as the genius for speculation is exercised by a mercantile family, the talent which gave them landed property may eventually deprive them of it.
[Footnote 1: _Dublin University Magazine_.]
To be happy in old age--at a time when men should leave for ever the toil, anxiety, and worry of money-making--they must, during youth and middle life, have kept their minds healthily active. They must familiarize themselves with knowledge, and take an interest in all that has been done, and is doing, to make the world wiser and better from age to age. There is enough leisure in most men's lives to enable them to interest themselves in biography and history. They may also acquire considerable knowledge of science, or of some enn.o.bling pursuit different from that by which money is made. Mere amus.e.m.e.nt will not do.
No man can grow happy upon amus.e.m.e.nt. The mere man of pleasure is a miserable creature,--especially in old age. The mere drudge in business is little better. Whereas the study of literature, philosophy, and science is full of tranquil pleasure, down to the end of life. If the rich old man has no enjoyment apart from money-making, his old age becomes miserable. He goes on grinding and grinding in the same rut, perhaps growing richer and richer. What matters it? He cannot eat his gold. He cannot spend it. His money, instead of being beneficial to him, becomes a curse. He is the slave of avarice, the meanest of sins. He is spoken of as a despicable creature. He becomes base, even in his own estimation.
What a miserable end was that of the rich man who, when dying, found no comfort save in plunging his hands into a pile of new sovereigns, which had been brought to him from the bank. As the world faded from him, he still clutched them; handled and fondled them one by one,--and then he pa.s.sed away,--his last effort being to finger his gold! Elwes the miser died shrieking, ”I will keep my money!--n.o.body shall deprive me of my property!” A ghastly and humiliating spectacle!
Rich men are more punished for their excess of economy, than poor men are for their want of it. They become miserly, think themselves daily growing poorer, and die the deaths of beggars. We have known several instances. One of the richest merchants in London, after living for some time in penury, went down into the country, to the parish where he was born, and applied to the overseers for poor's relief. Though possessing millions, he was horror-struck by the fear of becoming poor. Relief was granted him, and he positively died the death of a pauper. One of the richest merchants in the North died in the receipt of poor's relief. Of course, all that the parish authorities had doled out to these poor-rich men was duly repaid by their executors.
And what did these rich persons leave behind them? Only the reputation that they had died rich men. But riches do not const.i.tute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches. Money is a drug in the market. Some of the most wealthy men living are mere n.o.bodies. Many of them are comparatively ignorant. They are of no moral or social account. A short time since, a list was published of two hundred and twenty-four English millionaires. Some were known as screws; some were ”smart men” in regard to speculations; some were large navvies, coal-miners, and manufacturers; some were almost unknown beyond their own local circle; some were very poor creatures; very few were men of distinction. All that one could say of them was, that they died rich men.
”All the rich and all the covetous men in the world,” said Jeremy Taylor, ”will perceive, and all the world will perceive for them, that it is but an ill recompense for all their cares, that by this time all that shall be left will be this, that the neighbours shall say, _He died a rich man:_ and yet his wealth will not profit him in the grave, but hugely swell the sad accounts of his doomsday.”
”One of the chief causes,” says Mrs. Gore, ”which render the pursuit of wealth a bitterer as well as more pardonable struggle in England than on the Continent, is the unequal and capricious distribution of family property.... Country gentlemen and professional men,--nay, men without the pretension of being gentlemen,--are scarcely less smitten with the mania of creating 'an eldest son' to the exclusion and degradation of their younger children; and by the individuals thus defrauded by their nearest and dearest, is the idolatry of Mammon pursued without the least regard to self-respect, or the rights of their fellow-creatures.
Injured, they injure in their turn. Their days are devoted to a campaign for the recovery of their birthright. Interested marriages, shabby bargains, and political jobbery, may be traced to the vile system of things which converts the elder son into a Dives, and makes a Lazarus of his brother.”
But democrats have quite as great a love for riches as aristocrats; and many austere republicans are eager to be millionaires. Forms of government do not influence the desire for wealth. The elder Cato was a usurer. One of his means of making money was by buying young half-fed slaves at a low price; then, by fattening them up, and training them to work, he sold them at an enhanced price. Brutus, when in the Isle of Cyprus, lent his money at forty-eight per cent. interest,[1] and no one thought the worse of him for his Usury. Was.h.i.+ngton, the hero of American freedom, bequeathed his slaves to his wife. It did not occur to him to give them their liberty. Munic.i.p.al jobbery is not unknown in New York; and its influential citizens are said to be steeped to the lips in political corruption. Mr. Mills says, that the people of the North-Eastern States have apparently got rid of all social injustices and inequalities; that the proportion of population to capital and land is such as to ensure abundance for every able-bodied man; that they enjoy the six points of the Charter, and need never complain of poverty.
Yet ”all that these advantages have done for them is, that the life of the whole of our s.e.x is devoted to dollar-hunting; and of the other, to breeding dollar-hunters. This,” Mr. Mill adds, ”is not a kind of social perfection which philanthropists to come will feel any very eager desire to a.s.sist in realizing.”[2]
[Footnote 1: Cicero's Letters]
[Footnote 2: _Principles of Political Economy_, Book iv., ch. vi.]
Saladin the Great conquered Syria, Arabia, Persia, and Mesopotamia. He was the greatest warrior and conqueror of his time. His power and wealth were enormous. Yet he was fully persuaded of the utter hollowness of riches. He ordered, by his will, that considerable sums should be distributed to Mussulmans, Jews, and Christians, in order that the priests of the three religions might implore for him the mercy of G.o.d.
He commanded that the s.h.i.+rt or tunic which he wore at the time of his death should be carried on the end of a spear throughout the whole camp and at the head of his army, and that the soldier who bore it should pause at intervals and say aloud, ”Behold all that remains of the Emperor Saladin!--of all the states he had conquered; of all the provinces he had subdued; of the boundless treasures he had ama.s.sed; of the countless wealth he possessed, he retained, in dying, nothing but this shroud!”
Don Jose de Salamanca, the great railway contractor of Spain, was, in the early part of his life, a student at the University of Granada. He there wore, as he himself says, the oldest and most worn of ca.s.socks. He was a diligent student; and after leaving college he became a member of the Spanish press. From thence he was translated to the Cabinet of Queen Christina, of which he became Finance Minister. This brought out his commercial capacities, and induced him to enter on commercial speculations. He constructed railways in Spain and Italy, and took the princ.i.p.al share in establis.h.i.+ng several steam-s.h.i.+pping companies. But while pursuing commerce, he did not forget literature. Once a week he kept an open table, to which the foremost men in literature and the press were invited. They returned his hospitality by inviting him to a dinner on the most economic scale. Busts of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, Schiller, and other literary men, adorned the room.
In returning thanks for his health, Salamanca referred to his university experience, and to his labours in connection with the press. ”Then,” he went on to say, ”the love of gold took possession of my soul, and it was at Madrid that I found the object of my adoration; but not, alas!
without the loss of my juvenile illusions. Believe me, gentlemen, the man who can satisfy all his wishes has no more enjoyment. Keep to the course you have entered on, I advise you. Rothschild's celebrity will expire on the day of his death. Immortality can be earned, not bought.
Here are before us the effigies of men who have gloriously cultivated liberal arts; their busts I have met with in every part of Europe; but nowhere have I found a statue erected to the honour of a man who has devoted his life to making money.”
Riches and happiness have no necessary connection with each other. In some cases it might be said that happiness is in the inverse proportion to riches. The happiest part of most men's lives is while they are battling with poverty, and gradually raising themselves above it. It is then that they deny themselves for the sake of others,--that they save from their earnings to secure a future independence,--that they cultivate their minds while labouring for their daily bread,--that they endeavour to render themselves wiser and better--happier in their homes and more useful to society at large. William Chambers, the Edinburgh publisher, speaking of the labours of his early years, says, ”I look back to those times with great pleasure, and I am almost sorry that I have not to go through the same experience again; for I reaped more pleasure when I had not a sixpence in my pocket, studying in a garret in Edinburgh, than I now find when sitting amidst all the elegancies and comforts of a parlour.”
There are compensations in every condition of life. The difference in the lot of the rich and the poor is not so great as is generally imagined. The rich man has often to pay a heavy price for his privileges. He is anxious about his possessions. He may be the victim of extortion. He is apt to be cheated. He is the mark for every man's shaft. He is surrounded by a host of clients, till his purse bleeds at every pore. As they say in Yorks.h.i.+re when people become rich, the money soon ”broddles through.” Or, if engaged in speculation, the rich man's wealth may fly away at any moment. He may try again, and then wear his heart out in speculating on the ”chances of the market.” _Insomnia_ is a rich man's disease. The thought of his winnings and losings keeps him sleepless. He is awake by day, and awake by night. ”Riches on the brain”
is full of restlessness and agony.
The rich man over-eats or over-drinks; and he has gout. Imagine a man with a vice fitted to his toe. Let the vice descend upon the joint, and be firmly screwed down. Screw it again. He is in agony. Then suddenly turn the screw tighter--down, down! That is gout! Gout--of which Sydenham has said, that ”unlike any other disease, it kills more rich men than poor, more wise than simple. Great kings, emperors, generals, admirals, and philosophers, have died of gout. Hereby nature shows her impartiality, since those whom she favours in one way, she afflicts in another Or, the rich man may become satiated with food, and lose his appet.i.te; while the poor man relishes and digests anything. A beggar asked alms of a rich man ”because he was hungry.” ”Hungry?” said the millionaire; ”how I envy you!” Abernethy's prescription to the rich man was, ”Live upon a s.h.i.+lling a day, and earn it!” When the Duke of York consulted him about his health, Abernethy's answer was, ”Cut off the supplies, and the enemy will soon leave the citadel.” The labourer who feels little and thinks less, has the digestion of an ostrich; while the non-worker is never allowed to forget that he has a stomach, and is obliged to watch every mouthful that he eats. Industry and indigestion are two things seldom found united.
Many people envy the possessions of the rich, but will not pa.s.s through the risks, the fatigues, or the dangers of acquiring them. It is related of the Duke of Dantzic that an old comrade, whom he had not seen for many years, called upon him at his hotel in Paris, and seemed amazed at the luxury of his apartments, the richness of his furniture, and the magnificence of his gardens. The Duke, supposing that he saw in his old comrade's face a feeling of jealousy, said to him bluntly, ”You may have all that you see before you, on one condition.” ”What is that?” said his friend. ”It is that you will place yourself twenty paces off, and let me fire at you with a musket a hundred times.” ”I will certainly not accept your offer at that price.” ”Well,” replied the Marshal, ”to gain all that you see before you, I have faced more than a thousand gunshots, fired at not move than ten paces off.”
The Duke of Marlborough often faced death. He became rich, and left a million and a half to his descendants to squander. The Duke was a penurious man. He is said to have scolded his servant for lighting four candles in his tent, when Prince Eugene called upon him to hold a conference before the battle of Blenheim. Swift said of the Duke, ”I dare hold a wager that in all his compaigns he was never known to lose his baggage.” But this merely showed his consummate generals.h.i.+p. When ill and feeble at Bath, he is said to have walked home from the rooms to his lodgings, to save sixpence. And yet this may be excused, for he may have walked home for exercise. He is certainly known to have given a thousand pounds to a young and deserving soldier who wished to purchase a commission. When Bolingbroke was reminded of one of the weaknesses of Marlborough, he observed, ”He was so great a man, that I forgot that he had that defect.”