A hundred years hence what difference will it make whether you were rich or poor, a peer or a peasant? But what difference may it not make whether you did what was right or what was wrong?
"The 'Vicar of Wakefield,'" said George William Curtis, "was sold, through Dr. Johnson's mediation, for sixty pounds; and ten years after, the author died. With what love do we hang over its pages! What springs of feeling it has opened! Goldsmith's books are influences and friends forever, yet the five thousandth copy was never announced, and Oliver Goldsmith, M. D., often wanted a dinner! Horace Walpole, the coxcomb of literature, smiled at him contemptuously from his gilded carriage. Goldsmith struggled cheerfully with his adverse fate, and died. But then sad mourners, whom he had aided in their affliction, gathered around his bed, and a lady of distinction, whom he had only dared to admire at a distance, came and cut a lock of his hair for remembrance. When I see Goldsmith, thus carrying his heart in his hand like a palm branch, I look on him as a successful man, whom adversity could not bring down from the level of his lofty nature."
Dr. Maudsley tells us that the aims which chiefly predominate—riches, position, power, applause of men—are such as inevitably breed and foster many bad passions in the eager competition to attain them. Hence, in fact, come disappointed ambition, jealousy, grief from loss of fortune, all the torments of wounded self-love, and a thousand other mental sufferings,—the commonly enumerated moral causes of insanity. They are griefs of a kind to which a rightly developed nature should not fall a prey. There need be no envy nor jealousy, if a man were to consider that it mattered not whether he did a great thing or some one else did it, Nature's only concern being that it should be done; no grief from loss of fortune, if he were to estimate at its true value that which fortune can bring him, and that which fortune can never bring him; no wounded self-love, if he had learned well the eternal lesson of life,—self-renunciation.
Soon after his establishment in Philadelphia Franklin was offered a piece for publication in his newspaper. Being very busy, he begged the gentleman would leave it for consideration. The next day the author called and asked his opinion of it. "Well, sir," replied Franklin, "I am sorry to say I think it highly scurrilous and defamatory. But being at a loss on account of my poverty whether to reject it or not, I thought I would put it to this issue: At night, when my work was done, I bought a two-penny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and then, wrapping myself in my great coat, slept very soundly on the floor till morning, when another loaf and mug of water afforded a pleasant breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner, why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion for a more luxurious living?"
One cannot read this anecdote of our American sage without thinking of Socrates' reply to King Archelaus, who had pressed him to give up preaching in the dirty streets of Athens, and come and live with him in his splendid courts: "Meal, please your Majesty, is a half-penny a peck at Athens, and water I get for nothing!"
During Alexander's march into Africa he found a people dwelling in peace, who knew neither war nor conquest. While he was interviewing the chief two of his subjects brought a case before him for judgment. The dispute was this: the one had bought of the other a piece of ground, which, after the purchase, was found to contain a treasure, for which he felt bound to pay. The other refused to receive anything, stating that when he sold the ground he sold it with all the advantages apparent or concealed which it might be found to afford. The king said, "One of you has a daughter and the other a son; let them be married and the treasure given to them as a dowry." Alexander was surprised, and said, "If this case had been in our country it would have been dismissed, and the king would have kept the treasure." The chief said, "Does the sun shine on your country, and the rain fall, and the grass grow?" Alexander replied, "Certainly." The chief then asked, "Are there any cattle?" "Certainly," was the reply. The chief replied, "Then it is for these innocent cattle that the Great Being permits the rain to fall and the grass to grow."
A good character is a precious thing, above rubies, gold, crowns, or kingdoms, and the work of making it is the noblest labor on earth.
Professor Blackie of the University of Edinburgh said to a class of young men: "Money is not needful; power is not needful; liberty is not needful; even health is not the one thing needful; but character alone is that which can truly save us, and if we are not saved in this sense, we certainly must be damned." It has been said that "when poverty is your inheritance, virtue must be your capital."
During the American Revolution, while General Reed was President of Congress, the British Commissioners offered him a bribe of ten thousand guineas to desert the cause of his country. His reply was, "Gentlemen, I am poor, very poor; but your king is not rich enough to buy me."
"When Le Père Bourdaloue preached at Rouen," said Père Arrius, "the tradesmen forsook their shops, lawyers their clients, physicians their sick, and tavern-keepers their bars; but when I preached the following year I set all things to rights,—every man minded his own business."