"But simply to give away wealth without exacting an equivalent, would encourage idleness," argued the professor.
"And so to benefit our neighbor's morals we yield our own," said Eugene. "Well, that is new philanthropy, and I am less inclined to assent to it than ever I was. To keep untrammelled, we must, methinks, reduce the number of our physical wants instead of increasing them. Surely there are other modes of benefiting mankind than those which enervate. The education of the hero is frugal, hardy, temperate almost to scantiness. Fancy Sesostris or Cyrus lolling at ease in a spring-patented carriage, propped up luxuriously with velvet cushions! or think of a hero dressed out in gewgaws! Our minds lose the heroic element altogether in the picture."
"A good loss," replied the professor! "methinks these warriors make a great show, but what good do they effect: They destroy the arts of peace and live on the excitement of vain glory. That excitement over, they are as weak as other mortals. Hercules playing the distaff at Queen Omphale's court is a fitting type of a so-called hero's rest."
"Not of all," replied Eugene; "conquerors have been lawgivers, and good ones too. The passion of glory may not be a good in itself, but it is better than sensuality. You would not compare Cyrus with Heliogabalus."
"Not for himself, perhaps, not for his own private dignity; but for the good he did in the world at large. I think the preference questionable. Even allowing that the cruelty of Heliogabalus destroyed whole multitudes, it had not the devastating effect on whole districts which war ever produces; conquest lays waste large fields, destroys produce, and brings famine and played in its wake."
"I am not arguing in favor of war for its own sake, I am only saying that constant attention to mere bodily comfort must cause the race to degenerate. He who would rise individually in the scale of existence must repress bodily appetites, not encourage them; and this, if true of the individual, must be true of society also: consequently the introduction of luxury on a system, most eventually prove itself to be an evil.
"Pshaw!" said the professor, "these theories are well enough in the closet, but in action they are good for nothing. Why, you destroy incentive to mental activity, when you debar man from applying it to useful purposes."
"Useful, meaning increase of luxury?" asked Eugene.
"Well," somewhat petulantly rejoined the professor, "is not the definition of luxury a good? The rich may please themselves, but the poor need more comfort than they enjoy; among them diffusion of luxury must be a good."