But, alas! it was a terrible mistake. This weight of years had a perennial novelty for the poor sufferer. He never grew accustomed to it, but, long as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning life, and patient as he seemed, he still retained an inward consciousness that these stiffened shoulders, these quailing knees, this cloudiness of sight and brain, this confused forgetfulness of men and affairs, were troublesome accidents that did not really belong to him. He possibly cherished a half-recognized idea that they might pass away. Youth, however eclipsed for a season, is undoubtedly the proper, permanent, and genuine condition of man; and if we look closely into this dreary delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never absolutely succeeds in laying hold of our innermost convictions. A sombre garment, woven of life's unrealities, has muffled us from our true self, but within it smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes of many perishable things have fallen upon our youthful fire, but beneath them lurk the seeds of inextinguishable flame. So powerful is this instinctive faith that men of simple modes of character are prone to antedate its consummation. And thus it happened with poor Grandsir Dolliver, who often awoke from an old man's fitful sleep with a sense that his senile predicament was but a dream of the past night; and hobbling hastily across the cold floor to the looking-glass, he would be grievously disappointed at beholding the white hair, the wrinkles and furrows, the ashen visage and bent form, the melancholy mask of Age, in which, as he now remembered, some strange and sad enchantment had involved him for years gone by!
To other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old gentleman looked as if there were little hope of his throwing off this too artfully wrought disguise, until, at no distant day, his stooping figure should be straightened out, his hoary locks be smoothed over his brows, and his much enduring bones be laid safely away, with a green coverlet spread over them, beside his Bessie, who doubtless would recognize her youthful companion in spite of his ugly garniture of decay. He longed to be gazed at by the loving eyes now closed; he shrank from the hard stare of them that loved him not. Walking the streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt a dreary impulse to elude the people's observation, as if with a sense that he had gone irrevocably out of fashion, and broken his connecting links with the network of human life; or else it was that nightmare-feeling which we sometimes have in dreams, when we seem to find ourselves wandering through a crowded avenue, with the noonday sun upon us, in some wild extravagance of dress or nudity. He was conscious of estrangement from his towns-people, but did not always know how nor wherefore, nor why he should be thus groping through the twilight mist in solitude. If they spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the greeting translated itself faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they shook him by the hand, it was as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed the kindly pressure and the warmth. When little Pansie was the companion of his walk, her childish gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him into closer relationship with men, but seemed to follow him into that region of indefinable remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy, into which old Grandsir Dolliver had so strangely crept away.
Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the great-grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. It was as if his faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and Pansie moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, instead of the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the warm contiguity of his little companion through the medium of her hand, as it stirred within his own, or some inflection of her voice that set his memory ringing and chiming with forgotten sounds. While that music lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there were seasons, it might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had been kissed and put to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in among the massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those cavernous abysses with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or fiends into our twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them in by-gone years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam, stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet not go vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a glimpse within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them.
CURRENCY.
It is not only for gold that men labor, fight, and die. One labors long to perfect an invention; another, to illustrate a theory; a third, to express a sentiment; a fourth, to acquire real estate. With success, the first has a machine; the second, a treatise; the third, a poem; the fourth, a deed. Perhaps no other four persons would willingly expend the same amount of labor on the same objects; yet this difference of estimate effects no difference in the objects. Estimation, therefore, or value, is not a quality of those objects, but a state of mind in relation to them; accordingly, the poem has value as well as the machine,—the deed, as well as the wealth it defines. The value of the deed is, however, widely different from that of the wealth. The value of the wealth is based on desire, that of the deed on right, though in neither case exclusively, as, in a general sense, value always involves both desire and right, and is, therefore, a commercial relation, resulting from a state of society.
Men have the sense of right, and the intellect to define it, the will to defend, and the power to enforce it; and, for the more perfect development of these capabilities, they have instituted government. The functions of government are, therefore, the definition, the defence, and the enforcement of right.
The exercise of the function of definition led to the invention of two classes of commercial instrumentalities,—the real, consisting of weights and measures, and the ideal or representative, consisting of writing and notation. The exercise of the remaining functions of government secures the wealth these serve to define. It may, indeed, be true, in a rude sense, that possession is nine points of the law; but it is equally true, in a proper sense, that the remaining point is worth more than the nine; the defence and enforcement of right being an absolute and well-defined rule of government. In a state of barbarism men prefer fact to right, for an obvious reason; but as they advance in science and civilization, as their conceptions become more distinct, their definitions more exact, their defences more complete, and their enforcements more powerful, their faith in right increases, and their esteem increases with their faith, until right becomes of more value than possession.
Exchange, whether by barter or sale, is the result of differences of estimate or value. By barter, the articles exchanged are themselves the mediums; if, therefore, a given article be generally accepted to that use, it becomes a common medium; and if it be divided by government into well-defined quantities, suited and intended for that use, it becomes money. Money, therefore, in its original form, is a common medium of barter, that is accepted to that use by authority of law,—a medium which, considered distinctly from that authority, is simply an article of merchandise possessing qualities that make it preferable as a means of barter, and which, for convenience of use, bears the stamp of the government-inspector, defining the exact quantity contained in each piece, but which, inasmuch as it is authorized, and partakes of the nature of law, has ideal qualities that make it the means of sale: these are, right of use, nomination, and numeration. The ideal qualities of money serve to establish price, to create money of account, to make credits possible, and ultimately to produce credit-mediums of exchange, or bills, which, in a given form, though mere declarations of right to the wealth they are said to represent, become, in the hands of a civilized people, a species of currency that, with all its defects, has proved itself to be the most effectual means both of commerce and of government.
Wealth is that which may be used. Value is that by means of which wealth may be exchanged. A currency, therefore, should consist of representatives of value,—of representatives, because value, being ideal, is known only by that means,—of value, because it is only by differences of estimate or value that exchanges are possible. But, as these representatives are wholly nominal, and may, therefore, be issued in any quantity, and as their increase or decrease affects the value of credits, their issue requires regulation. The quantity of the currency may be well regulated by finding the rate per head of population during a favorable state of trade, and by adhering to that invariably.