ON Tin: MANAGEMENT OF MONEY. 85 



serpent is to the bird; its eye fascinates, its breath poisons, its coil 

 crushes sinew and bone, its jaw is the pitiless grave. If you mock my 

 illustration, if you sneer at the truth it embodies, give yourself no farther 

 trouble to learn how to manage your money. Consider yourself doomed ; 

 3 on your way with a jaunty step ; the path is facile paths to Aver- 

 nus always are. But if, while I write, your heart, true to the instinct of 

 manhood, responds to my words if you say, "Agreed; that which you 

 rail the first rule for the management of money, I hold yet more impera- 

 tive as the necessity to freedom and the life-spring of probity" then 

 advance on your way, assured that wherever it wind it must ascend. You 

 l.ut the temple of Honour; close behind it is the temple of Fortune. 

 You will pass through the one to the other. 



" But," siiih.s the irresolute youth, whom the eye of the serpent has al- 

 ly charmed, " it is by no means so easy to keep out of debt as it is to 

 write warnings against getting into it." 



y to keep out of debt ? Certainly not. Nothing in life worth an 



effort is easy. Do you expect to know the first six books of Euclid by 



inspiration ? Could you get over that problem in the first book, popularly 



called the Ass's Bridge, without a sigh of fatigue ? Can you look back to 



the rudimentary agonies of the Multiplication Table and the Rule of 



Three, or A* > /> i>r<t-*i'iiti t or even Propria quce maribus, without a lively 



recollection of the moment when you fairly gave in, and said, "This is 



much for human powers ?" Even in things the pleasantest, if we wish 



icceed we must toil. We are all Adam's children. Whatever we cul- 



(.n earth, till we win our way back into Eden, we must earn by the 



f our brain. Not even the Sybarite was at ease on his rose-bed 



i fr him some labour was needful. No hand save his own could un- 



crumple the rose-leaf that chafed him. Each object under the sun reflects 



a difficulty on the earth. "Every hair," says that exquisite PuMius Syrus. 



nts of old verse are worth libraries of modern comedies 

 ry hair c ihadow." 



Hut think, <>h, youiiLr man! of the ol.ject 1 place before you, and then 

 1..- a>hamed of yOOTSelf if you still s'ndi, " Ka<y t> preach, and not easy to 



1 have QO interest in the preaching ; your interest is immen-e 



the practice. That ul.jcct not WOO, your heart has no peace, and your 



urity. Your conscience itself leaves a door open ni^lit and 



to the tempter ; niirht and day to the ear of a debtor steal whispers 



prompt to the deeds of a felon. Tim-" years ago you admired the 



90me Il: li:m - \Vheiv is he now ' In the 



dock in th.- jail- in the hulks 1 \\'h it : that opulent bunker, whose 



