"Perhaps."
"No doubt about it. A poor man can be a theologian, or a follower of science, but he can't be both, and explore the Rocky Mountains and Darkest Africa, and conduct soup kitchens in Glasgow, and do a two-years tour with Moody and Sankey."
"That aspect had n't occurred to me. I am glad I was not compelled to have it occur to me," said Drummond.
"A man needing money and unable to get it is like a machine without lubricating oil. Almost any man who has done much without money could have done more with it," I said.
"You think so?"
"Are we to think that friction is the best result?"
"No," Drummond answered.
"Some men can't make money because their work does n't run to it, or they may have the ability, but not the desire, or they may not be able to afford to make money; you remember Agassiz's case. Perhaps he did n't need it."
"Money-making is a special faculty," said Drummond. "A man has it or does n't have it, as he may or may not have a musical ear, an eye for colour, a delicate sense of smell, and so on. I know moneyed men, and I daresay you know others, who are duffers outside their special lines. Most men are duffers outside their special lines."