Marvelous discovery! beatific vision! only, at the moment of utmost complacency, calm reflection, like a chill wind, “disencharms the late enchantment.” My tastes are not my own. They belong to my parents and my race. I cannot help it that I was born with a thin skin, which requires fine silk next it to be comfortable; with a queasy stomach, that demands delicate dishes; with a thirst for remote and useless learning, which must have expensive books. So from this time forth I flout at and deride that solemn prig of antiquity, whose name I am glad to have forgotten, who taught that there are two ways of getting rich, each equally satisfactory, but one much easier than the other—the one to diminish our wants, the other to increase our incomes. I have no better opinion of his teaching than had Malvolio of the doctrine of Pythagoras, that “the soul of his grandam might haply inhabit a partridge;” and, really, which of the two the antiquated
mentor thought the easier I cannot imagine. To me, it has been the latter.
Money, therefore, we must have.
Her physician said of Cleopatra that she had “pursued conclusions infinite, of easy ways to die.” The expression might be used of many a modern schemer with reference to getting wealth. But alas! I am afraid, of the thousands of schemes, that of the dry, unimaginative, political economists is the only one worth mentioning; and that is summed up in the hateful word—Economize! or, as they put it in their stiff dialect,—“Diminish the consumption of your 'effective’ riches, in order that you may add the surplus to your 'productive’ riches, or invested capital.”
Some of them are even meddlesome enough to lay down exact rules as to how much one should put aside from an annual income and securely invest, in order to meet the demands of what they call “an enlightened prudence.” This, they say, should be one-fourth of such income, and they add that if this with its increment is continued for about five-and-twenty years, the return from your “productive” riches will then be sufficient to supply you with the amount of “effective” riches to which you have been accustomed, without further labor on your part; and you can quietly sit in the chimney corner and live in bliss all the rest of your days, like the prince in the fairy story. This is a page, therefore, good for young married people to read who are starting out in life and have their fortunes to make, and want to “retire” at their silver wedding.
Such slow work will not suit the energetic young man whose determination is to get rich quick and have a good time while he is about it. He has no occasion to go back to antiquity for his two ways of succeeding, and he proposes to use them both as strings to his bow, so that by one or the other he will drive his arrow into the bull’s eye of fortune’s target. Speculation! Advertising! These are the words of power with which he will enslave the spirits which guard the hidden pots of gold. He is well aware that a bit of red flannel is bait enough for many fishes, and that in angling false flies catch more trout than real ones. The value of knowledge to him is measured by the ability it gives to detect the ignorance of others and to take advantage of it. His plans, like those of Cardinal de Retz, are so laid that, though they fail, they will bring in some return. He will manage to secure a commission even on the expenditures he makes for his pleasures. Such a character, and there are many such in our country, often enough succeeds in his ambitions.
I was in active business for twenty years, and I made the discovery that the excellent precepts which all are taught in infancy and continue to praise in after years undergo certain modifications when it comes to practical life “in the street.” Once I amused myself by writing them out as I found them really observed, and I am inclined to insert a few specimens, which I will call
Not how business should be done, but how others do business, is the proper study.
The brighter your virtues shine, the more fish will be attracted within reach of your gig.