Is he more happy? Ah, here we come to the test question. Well, he can have a larger and a finer house than most people, and it may be furnished like a palace. Pictures of the old masters may adorn its walls; musical instruments of rare value, works of art and vertu, may meet the eye at every turn; the gardens, and rose lawns, and conservatories may be more gorgeous than the dream of an Eastern prince. But can he live in more than one room at a time, or enjoy anything around him a bit better than the friends do whom he invites to his home that they may admire everything and envy him?
But even the millionaire tires of home. He is satiated with the good things his gold has brought him; and if he travels abroad he will not find half the enjoyment in those beauties of nature—which even the millionaire’s gold cannot deprive the poorest man of—that the poet or the naturalist does.
I think there is one thing that most of us have to be thankful for—namely, that we are not over-ambitious, and have no desire to become millionaires.
Yes, but Tandy’s ambition was not a morbid one; it was not selfish. He felt that he could die contentedly enough, could he make as sure as any one can be sure that his boy and girl would not become waifs and strays on the great highway of life.
How to make sure? That had been the question he had tried to answer many and many a time as he lay on the poop of his little craft and sailed slowly through the meadows and moors.
I have said he was inventive. His inventive faculties, however, took him far too high at first, like a badly ballasted balloon. He thought of ministering to governments of nations—of putting into their hands instruments for the destruction of his fellow mortals that should render war impossible, and many other equally airy speculations.
He failed, and had to come down a piece. There is no use in soaring too high above the clouds if one would be a useful inventor and a benefactor to mankind. Darning-needles are of more service to the general public than dynamite guns, and they are more easily manufactured. So Tandy failed in all his big things. That balloon of his was still soaring too high.
“I guess,” he said to himself, “I’ll have to come a little lower still before I find out just what the world wants, and what all the world wants.”
Food? Physic? Fire?
Ha! he had it. Fire, of course. How many a poor wretch starves to death in a garret just because coals are too dear to purchase. “And why?” he asked himself; and the answer came fast enough, “Because coals are wasted by the rich.”