But the man most frequently seen in America is the man who accumulates money for money's sake. His is a sad heart when he looks over the past and ahead into the short future.
If he has children, he has hardly known them—and HIS MONEY has separated them from each other.
When his son was a little child the rich man made himself think that he was piling up the money for that boy. What became of that boy?
Ask the Keeley Cure, the public gambling houses, Monte Carlo, the divorce court—and the other "resources" of the sons of the very rich.
Thousands envy him, and he knows it. But there is little in being envied when old age makes a lonely life unbearable, and when the next striking event in his career will be a funeral.
There are hundreds of thousands of men with their thoughts fixed absolutely on money making. They hate what threatens money. They love those who sympathize with money. They live, work, vote, talk, marry and cheat their friends for money.
If they fail—as most of them do—they die unhappy. If they succeed, money cheats THEM, and for all their devotion gives them nothing.
"For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
The man wastes his soul who devotes its forces only to accumulating wealth.