There are few paupers among us who do not conceit themselves to be artists at spending money, and believe the fit intelligence is most wanting in those who have the means. I confess that I share their convictions, having wasted much time in a study of the situation. Like those planning a foreign tour, I have mapped out the golden road of Opportunity, and know the itinerary by heart. And, without trespassing the science of Economy, of which I am criminally ignorant (having been somewhat prepossessed during my Sophomore courses), I submit there are active and passive categories into which coupon-cutters may be relegated. The symbol of your monied man is the cigar, involving a destructive process, whether applied to food, raiment or ministry to the senses. The greed of the collector is of the same flavour. It is the difference between spending the money to see and to stage the play that I mean.
For why should an access of wealth so dull the brain that the battle between the kings of hearts and spades seems more interesting than the game with human knights and pawns? I have often been minded to write an "Open Letter to Millionaires," and offer myself as a Master of their Sports, to guide them through fields of untried sensation and novel enterprises. I have my offers tabulated from an hundred dollars upward, each involving the inception of activities whose ramifications would provide diversion for years. There are twenty young men I know of in this town who are waiting for such a chance. Why should I not be elected to captain them? I promise you the rise and fall of stocks shall not be more exciting than our rivalries. Indeed, brains are for sale at absurd bargains today. Why not play them off against each other in a game of Life?
But these are dreams never to be realized. I am no promoter, and must play the beggar's part. Yet I have often wondered how I would be affected if these hopes came true, and if some capitalist, touched by my appeal, seeing this good seed cast upon barren ground, opening his heart and purse-strings, should present me with a modest fortune without conditions. Could I assume the responsibility of gratitude and fly with the load of obligation that I myself would assume? By all rules of fiction, no! Yet if my conscience were seduced I might frame my mind to accept debonairly and do my best. Tempt me not, millionaires, for this is my week of longing, and my brain boils with adventurous desires.
Yet, had I the ear of the benefactor, another mood would impel my renunciation; for, against my will and interest, I am forced to acknowledge that others are better fitted to be rich than I, who have been a pauper all my life, and am not so unhappy in my misery. I know some to whom wealth should come as a right, as has their beauty, and who play an inconsistent part upon the stage of poverty. There is Dianeme, who knows the names of all the roses, and can tell one etching from another. She is so instinct with tact and taste that I feel quite unworthy of affluence until she has been served. And there, too, is Little Sister, who is in worse case, having once ridden on high wheels and nestled against the padded comforts of life, now charioted by street cars, with a motorman for a driver and a conductor for a footman. And though it was her reverses that gave me chance to be her friend and discover her worth, yet I fear I would put back my opportunity ten years to give her the little luxuries she craves. She has acquired a relish for the flesh-pots, poor Little Sister, and somehow the weakness becomes her, as the habit of weeping fitted the eighteenth century ideals of women. Two more pairs of silk stockings would reinstate her as a lady complete. Not that anybody but Little Sister and her laundress would ever see them, but they would give her a nourishing satisfaction that is of itself worth while.
Yet, again I wonder--if Little Sister grew rich, what would become of me? I am told that the first pangs of the birth of Fortune are felt in the unpleasant acquisition of new claimants to friendship, but I do not believe this is so. I should myself fear to intrude, I am sure. There would be so many new relations and obligations that I could not take the friendship simply and naturally. I could make love to her by letter, perhaps, but not in her carriage. I would miss the ungloved hand of familiarity and enclose myself in starched formality, though I know the pain in so doing would be mutual. For the pride of riches is as nothing to the pride of poverty, and I am very, very poor! But surely Little Sister must be rich again, even if I have to wait for the second table.
And so I gracefully resign my claims to fortune, where I am so outclassed, and make off into the open fields towards the Hills of Fame, where the brougham of Opulence may not follow me, though I fare afoot. For we do not get rich in my family; there is no uncle in Patagonia whose death could benefit us, and the bag of diamonds, the hope of whose discovery sustained my immature youth, no longer haunts my dreams. For a long time yet I must deny myself the title of gentleman, forced as I am to carry parcels "over three inches square," which I hear is the test of fashionable caste. This is my last gasp. I shall be a man again tomorrow, and if any millionaire is tempted by this appeal, he must make haste. But I shall not be rung up from sleep tonight. It is the law of society that Spend helps Save, and Save helps Scrimp, and Scrimp helps Starve.
A Young Man's Fancy
Undoubtedly the most logical, though perhaps the least interesting, method of opening the discussion of a thesis, is that employed by the skillful carver who dissects his duck according to the natural divisions of the subject and proceeds therewith analytically. This is the system encouraged in academic courses and is said to enable any one to write upon any subject. But such an essay is mighty hard reading; unless a writer is so hungry for his theme that he forgets his manners and falls to without ceremony the chances are that his efforts will receive scant attention. And so I shyly speak of love.
So few essayists write with a good appetite! And yet, see how I restrain myself, and perforce adopt the conventional procedure, as one too proud to betray his ravening hunger! I must be calm, I must be polite--and you shall know only by my forgetfulness of the salt and my attention to the bones of thought, how the game interests me. In speaking of love, I must let my head guard my heart, too, for it is in the endeavour to misunderstand women that we pass our most delightful moments. They will not permit men to be too sure of them, and what you learn from one, you must hide carefully from the next. So I begin my fencing with a great feint of awkwardness, like a master with a beginner, knowing well enough how likely to get into trouble is any one who pretends innocence.
For a long time I believed it all a conspiracy of the novelists, and that love, so ideally depicted, was but a myth, kept alive by the craft, to furnish a backbone for literary sensation. But there are undoubtedly many bigoted believers in the theory of love. The women, however, who admit that it is a lost art, complain piteously of the ineptitude of the other sex. I confess that few men can satisfactorily acquit themselves of the ordeal of courtship without some tuition, but, once having acquired the rudiments of the profession, it seems inconsistent to taunt them with the experiments of their apprenticeship. It is too much to require a man to make a gallant wooing and then twit him with the "promiscuousness" by which he won his facility. Yet, some, doubtless, have learned also to defend themselves against this last accusation; it is the test of the Passed Master. For the other, poor dolts, who never see the opportunity for action, however adroitly presented, who speak when they should hold tongue and leave undone all those things that they ought to have done--the girls marry them, to be sure, but most of the love-making is on the wrong side. There are more yawns than kisses; the brutal question satisfies the yop, and he bungles through the engagement, breaking doggedly through the crust of the acquaintance, witless of the delightful perils of thin ice.